Sweet XOXO Bunting for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is coming up and my house needed a little extra love. Meet the sweetest bunting ever! 

This XOXO bunting is a customized version of the Party Bunting pattern, along with a sweet little heart block to add some extra love (and length).

Valentine's Day stash buster

Isn't this cute? I had some Valentine's fabrics left over from my Be Mine quilt from last year, so I pulled it out to see if I had enough to make six blocks and matching flags. I managed to squeeze enough out of them for two flags and blocks each, all of them pink or red letters or hearts on a white background.

If you'd like to make the same bunting as me, you'll need:

• (3) Fat Eights for the letters and hearts
• (3) Fat Quarters for the background and backing of the flags
• (2) 2" x WOF strips for the binding (or enough 2" wide strips to make a 80"-85" long binding)

This makes 2 blocks per fabric. I mixed up the backgrounds and the letters/hearts so it wasn't the same two together each time, but you can also make the same combination for each block, since you'll have two each of the Xs, Os, and hearts.

Free Sweet Heart block download

The Be Mine quilt has a large heart block included in the pattern, but the Party Bunting does not, so I decided to shrink the heart block from Be Mine to include with the XOXO bunting. It has slightly different proportions to avoid cutting things like 7/8", but it looks the same once it's sewn into a project. 

I made the little heart block a free download for you, so you can make your own Valentine's project. Just put your info in the signup form below and you'll get the pattern straight to your inbox (but maybe check your spam folder as well, just in case). Signing up this way also adds you to my Weekly Threads newsletter list, but if you find my emails not to be your cup of tea, there's an unsubscribe link in every one of them.

The Sweet Heart block finishes at 5" x 5" (that's 5.5" x 5.5" with the seam allowances) and is a perfect little scrap buster for all sorts of projects like

• Coasters (how about gifting a set of them to a dear friend?)
• Small gift bag
• Book or Kindle/e-reader cover
• Small zipper pouch (it would even fit on this bag)
• Applique on a sweater or jean jacket

Party Bunting sewing pattern

The Party Bunting pattern is super customizable, with every letter being a self-contained pattern with its own cutting and sewing directions, so it was really easy to make up this XOXO bunting. All the blocks in this pattern finish at 5" square, and the great thing is that they don't just work for buntings but also for loads of other small projects requiring words.

I decided which fabrics were going to go together for which blocks, and then chain-pieced each set of two blocks at the same time. So both Xs, both Os, and then both heart blocks. I figured if I started to mix all the blocks together the risk that I was going to need the seam ripper was a lot higher, and since I didn't have tons of leftover fabrics for mishaps, I wasn't going to chance it.

Swallow tail bunting

The Party Bunting pattern includes two flag options, a swallow tail version and a triangle version. I chose the swallow tail version for my XOXO bunting because I just love the look of it. Although the triangle version is a little bit easier to sew.

Easy scrappy bunting

If you love the bunting idea but don't want to make quilt blocks for it, here's a tutorial for a fun way to turn a bunch of scraps into an easy scrappy bunting. It's a quick and fun project and can easily be made with store bought bias tape and a stack of 5" scrap squares.