Patrol Flag

This article is about how to make a patrol flag.

Materials
heavy cloth
thread
grommets
paracord

Tools
sewing machine
iron
scissors
yardstick
fabric marking pencil
grommet setting tool
lighter

I bought the cloth from Walmart for about $5 a yard.  A yard will yield 4 patrol flags.  A yard and a half will give you 6.  You can get a set of grommets and grommet tool from Harbor Freight for about $4.  I prefer a heavy denim needle on the sewing machine.

First cut out your cloth.  See the diagram below for dimensions.



You are going to hem the 2 long 16" sides first.  Fold over 1/2" and crease it with the iron.  Then fold it over 1/2" again and crease with the iron again.  Run a stitch down the length of the hem on the sewing machine.  Don't worry about locking the ends of the stitches, since these will be folded up into the corners anway.

Now repeat this process on the two short sides that meet at the point of the flag.

For the grommet side of the flag, fold over and crease 1" from the end.  Then fold over and crease 1 1/2" from the end.

Now for the grommets.  Mark the center of your grommet holes 1" from the top or bottom, and 3/4" in from the pole side of the flag.  Use the tools in the grommet kit to cut the hole and seat the grommet.  After cutting the hole, but prior to seating the grommet, I ran a zigzag stitch around the grommet hole to reinforce it.

Now cut 2 12" pieces of paracord and remove the inner strands.  Fuse the ends with a lighter.  Fasten each to a grommet with a lark's head knot.

The finished flag should look like this.

Here it is attached to a pole.

Let the patrols decorate them for themselves.  One easy way to do this is to cut out a silhouette of their patrol critter from felt and fabric glue it to the flag.  Add wording with a stencil and Sharpie.


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