DIY Rainbow Wall Hangings!

It is the 30th year of Pride celebrations in Calgary, and STASH is celebrating with a fiber-rific wall hanging kit that is inspired by the traditional rainbow flag! At STASH we too believe in resiliency, community, & love - and as allies of the LGBTQA2S+ community we want to show our support by donating 100% of the profits from kit sales to the Calgary Queer Arts Society. 

We're including all the instructions here, so you can make your own wall hanging even without a kit. There are so many different pride flags, so you can make the one that you identify with most! Click here for a list to get you started. (There are of course many more flags than the list covers!)

The kits contain everything you need, but if you're making your own flags you'll need:

• A dowel
• 9 strands* of yarn per flag colour - approximately 70" or 178 cm long 
  *this is based on a 6 colour flag, so you can make adjustments as needed!
• 1 pieces of twine 
• A suction cup to hang your piece (optional!) 

If you want to get the kit, you can here! 

How to make your wall hanging:

• We recommend that you sort your yarns for the wall hanging by neatly spreading out each colour of yarn so that it is ready for you to use in the correct order: violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, & red. Optional but fun: Do you have other textures of yarn that match Pride colours? You can add them into your project - so dive into your stash and look for embellishments! For inspo, check out our pinterest board!

• Starting with violet, group together three strands of the same colour (plus optional embellishments) and carefully fold the strands at the halfway point - now it should look like six or more strands, with a loop at the top. This grouping will make your wall hanging feel full and fluffy!

• You will be attaching each group of strands to the dowel using a larks head knot, with the knot facing outward. Holding 3 strands of one colour together, fold your yarn in half making a U-shape. Place the dowel OVER the U-shape. Bring the ends of your yarn OVER the dowel, and UNDER the U. Pull down, and voila!

Here's a diagram for visual peeps! 

There are lots of videos on Youtube to help you out, too! 

• Attach your yarn stripes in order from left to right. We started with violet on the left, and finished with red on the right so that it mimicked the flag flying, but you can make yours howeva you want as long as you respect the proper order for the Pride flag! The kit contains enough supplies for three knots that are three strands each per stripe of colour - for a total of 18 knots across the dowel

• Once you have all of the yarn attached it is time to add the twine so that you can hang up your fibre piece! Tightly tie one end of the twine to the dowel (this will also keep the larks head knots from slipping off the dowel), determine the length that you would like your twine to be, and tightly tie the twine on the other end of the dowel.

• If you want the bottom of your wall hanging to be a crisp cut across, you can either 1. Trim the bottom with a rotary cutter, cutting mat, and ruler or 2. Carefully lay your wall hanging down on a table, use a book or other heavy object to pin your fire fringe down, and carefully cut across with a pair of good scissors. Some peeps like a softer edge on the bottom and don’t cut it at all!  Pro tip: steaming your wall hanging will make it super smooth

• Bam, you are done, you clever crafter! Hang that wall hanging to show your support for the Pride movement in Calgary - and now that you know just how easy and fun it is to make one, dig into your stash and make another! We have included a suction cup for you to use if you would like to place your finished piece in a window.

If you want printable instructions, click here for the free PDF download! 

Thank you for buying this kit and for supporting the Calgary Queer Arts Society, an amazing organization that exists to give voice to queer people and their stories. They produce one of Canada’s largest LGBTQA2S+ film festivals: The Fairy Tales Queer Film Festivals, operate year-round arts and education programming, youth programming, and more. Please check them out at www.CalgaryQueerArtsSociety.com