Pottery Barn Burlap Easter Flag Knock Off

Pottery Barn's spring catalog is out and they have a burlap bunny flag on page 13 that they are selling for $39 that I knew I could totally make for a few dollars worth of materials I had on hand.

{Pottery Barn}

A few months back I got a 60% off coupon for any full price item at JoAnn's and I used it to buy a bolt of burlap.  I live about 45 minutes from the nearest JoAnn's so I thought it would be best to buy the bolt so I wouldn't have to keep making trips for projects.  It is normally $3.99 per yard, so 60% off brings it to $1.60 yard and I used less than a yard for the flag.  

I started by searching bunny silhouettes online.  I found one close to the original and I sized it to be 23" tall by 14" wide.  It fit on six pieces of paper (two across, three down).  I was able to set the photo with transparent color which basically let me change all the black to white, but left an outline of the bunny.  This saved me a ton of ink! I also drew in a tail since the silhouette I found didn't have one.

The PB flag has the bunny in a white color burlap.  I didn't have that, but I did have a cream canvas material I bought at a garage sale. They were homemade curtains and I got a bunch of panels for $3.  I used less than one panel for the bunny.  I just pinned the paper template to it and cut it out.

The PB flag measures 30" wide x 38" tall.  The burlap is 44" and I cut a piece off at 28" because 30" seemed too wide for the bunny I made.  I ironed the edges and gave it a 1/2" seam on both sides.

Next I chose to stencil Happy Easter in my 3" Arial font letters in a cream color close to the canvas fabric color.  I used latex paint as this is what I have on hand for painting furniture.  This part of the process took the longest as I didn't want to do one letter at a time and take a chance it would come out all wonky.

First I stenciled the words on paper with a black marker and cut the paper as close to the words as possible.  To find the center of the words and the burlap I folded the paper in half, folded the burlap in half and placed the fold of the words on the fold of the burlap and pinned them down.  (The photo above shows the words on top of the burlap, but I had to actually pin them UNDER the burlap to be able to paint on top of them.)  I then propped the burlap up on a piece of glass and used the flashlight app on my iPhone to create a light box to find them to place the stencil on top.  This was the best way I could figure out how to do the entire word at the same time and keep the letters level and spaced properly.

After the words were stenciled, I was able to position the bunny applique on the burlap above the words and pin it down to sew.

I haven't sewn an applique since 7th grade sewing class, so I had to check out a few YouTube videos for some techniques and I was confident I could do it with a straight stitch.  I went very, very slow especially around the curves.  At the curves you have to stop, make sure the needle is down, lift the presser foot and turn the material to follow the shape.  I even hand cranked so I had more control.  I was able to go around the whole applique with one stitch!  I was totally prepared to have to make some fixes, but since I went really slow, it worked out.

After that was done, I ironed and hemmed the bottom and created a rod pocket at the top. But instead of using an actual rod, I used a stick from my yard and tied jute string to it to hang it from.

Didn't it come out great?  I am so proud of myself for being able to get it done and not having too much trouble in the process.  Even though it only cost me a few dollars using materials I had on hand, it did take quite a few hours (more than I care to admit) over the course of three days to get done.  

When I went to get the link to Pottery Barn for the flag, it said it is already no longer available!  So if you want it, you have no choice but to make it!  Or you can pay me $39 to make it, but I can't promise I could get it done by Easter--ha!  If anyone wants the bunny template I used, leave me a comment and I can email it to you in a pdf file.

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