Fourth of July Parade

I usually love the tutorials on made, but when I saw the one for Ruffled Streamers... with all the projects on my to do list, I did't see myself sitting behind my machine and sewing together yards and yards of crepe paper. 

But when she posted it again with a patriotic twist, I was suddenly inspired. We were decorating my dad's iconic 1971 GMC truck for the Crozet Gazette float in the Crozet Fourth of July parade, and ruffling my red and blue streamers together suddenly seemed like a must-do. 

I used the trick of keeping the rolls turning on a dowel and it was really quick work. She says she used the tightest tension on her machine, and even held the spool of thread to boost the tension more, but I only had to set my machine's tension at 7 (out of 10). At 10 the ruffles were too tight. I wish it was so simple to ruffle fabric.

My other day-of craft project for the parade was the bunting for the truck's grill. I made the CROZET flags in Illustrator to add to Martha Stewart's "festive pennants" download from the July issue. Printed them on my own printer. I punched holes in the corners and strung it on kitchen twine. 

The truck didn't win any parade awards but it was still my favorite float. Plus they threw some nice candy.