Sports Pennant

Make your own custom sports pennant and celebrate your favorite team.

• felt; 2-3 colors (we recommend starched felt for the pennant shape)
• scissors
• masking tape
• permanent marker/pen/pencil (to write on tape)
• white glue/fabric glue/hot glue
  • (all will work; hot glue works best for the dowel and the felt that holds it in place. if you use white glue you will need a lot of it since it absorbs into the felt. we had to use hot glue to hold the dowel and tabs in place on one of our pennants, the white glue was not strong enough.)
• dowel- for our example pennant size (6" x 9") we used a 12" dowel. you could also use a stick from outside, or make a smaller pennant and use a pencil.
• (optional) ruler to draw your lines and measure your pennant

Draw out your pennant shape. It's a triangle with on short side and two long sides. An easy tip for the size is to figure out our height (ours is 6" tall) and then make it 1.5x the height in length (ours is 9" long because half of 6 is 3, and 3+6=9). The second photo shows our measurements. Once you have it drawn, cut it out.

Cover your pennant with masking tape- to make sure the tape comes off of the felt easily (and doesn't mar it) you want it to be less sticky than usual. You can achieve this by tearing your tape and then sticking it to your jeans a few times before putting it on your pennant (that gets your jean lint on it and makes it stick less). After you've covered the pennant with tape, draw your letters. You can do one set of letters or two, where one is outlined by a different color (like the blue and white letters in our example).

Peel the tape off of the pennant and put it on your first color of felt (or the only color if you just have one letter color). Cut around the letters. If you have an opening to get to you can fold the fabric in half and cut out a little notch to fit your scissors through.

If you have a second color for letters, repeat the process by peeling off you tape (this can be tricky so be patient) and putting it on your second color of felt. Then cut it out. If you tear your tape too much when removing it you can always put another layer of tape onto your work surface and trace out your letters and use that as your new guide.

You can use fabric glue, hot glue or white glue to glue down your letters. If you use white glue you'll need to put a lot down (don't worry if it oozes out from under the letters since it dries clear) since it'll absorb into the felt a bit. You'll also want to let it dry fully before you flip it over to add the dowel.

Cut out tabs to hold on the dowel. Ours are about 1" x 2". Glue the tabs onto the edge of your pennant (see photo for placement). Use A LOT of glue if you're using white glue. We made three pennants and had to use hot glue for one of them instead of white glue. The tabs need to be adhered very well since they're under stress.

When all your glue is dry, flip over the pennant. Glue the dowel onto the tabs. Fold the tabs over and glue them onto the back of your pennant. After the glue dries you're done & ready to cheer your sports team on!