Halloween How To: DIY Fireplace Mantel Scarf

I love the Fall. It's my favorite time of year. I love the cooler evenings (not so much cooler days here in Southeast Texas), the craft fairs, the decorating! I love to decorate and Fall is the beginning of great holiday decorating.

One thing that I'm so excited about is that for the first time in forever, we have a house with a fireplace mantel - so I love decorating for the season. Over the 4th of July I made my first fireplace mantel scarf and I loved it, so I have done another one just for Halloween. I decided to go ahead and do a tutorial and how to since it was super easy and I love how they both look. I'm sure I'll tweak it and play around with it for my Thanksgiving scarf and Christmas scarf - but I know I'll be doing them for each holiday.

Here's what you need to get started:

3 yards (you may need more if your fireplace mantel is longer than 84") of your "base" fabric.

9 different Halloween patterned fat quarters (more if you have a larger fireplace)

1 yard of muslim or solid cotton fabric (I used felt on this project and it worked fine) for the backing of each banner (again more if you have a larger fireplace)

2 Triangle Templates for your banners. One measured 10" across x 17", the second was 8 x 14) You can do one template and not change the banner sizes. I have made a printable of the larger template you can use. Just click here.

Embellishments (optional) for the tip of each banner/pennant.

Iron

Instructions:

1. Cut out your triangle templates.

2. Using your templates, cut out the triangle pieces using your fat quarters and the backing fabric.

3. Put right sides together and sew around at a .50" seam allowance. Leave a small opening to turn your triangle inside out. Clip your tips.

4. Turn triangle inside out and press.

5. Top stitch around the outside of your triangle with a .25" seam allowance.

6. Stitch all of your triangles. I ended up with 5 large triangles and 4 small triangles for my 84" mantel. An easy way to figure how many triangles you will need if you use the large size is to take the length of your fireplace mantel and divide it by the width of the triangle size you are going to use, i.e. 84 divided by 10 = 8.4 or 8. Since I used two sizes, I had my husband do the math. LOL

7. Now, take your 3 yards of fabric and press. The first time I made the scarf I just folded the fabric in half and cut it in half lengthwise the entire length of the mantel. The second time I went ahead and did about 1/4 to 3/4 ratio.