DIY Fall Apple Banner with Wood Hanger - Free Pattern

Create a pretty fall apple banner that's the perfect autumn accent for your door!  Use a wood pants hanger for an easy and charming way to hang it up.

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My new favorite way to make a door banner is with a clamp style wooden pants hanger.  I think the wood and metal of the hanger gives it a farmhouse or vintage cottage feel.

And they’re so easy to use!  You can clamp the hanger around the top of the banner, and BOOM it’s ready to be hung up.  It’s just as easy to remove it from the hanger if you want to switch the banner out seasonally.

So now that you’ve got a super easy banner hanger, how about sewing up a quick banner to celebrate the season?  This apple banner is perfect for welcoming fall!  I’ve got a free pattern for you below.

The design is simple – just three pretty apples all in a row.  The long tall banner looks nice hanging on a front door, and those big bold apples are easily seen from a distance.

The apple applique is easy to sew, and I made the whole thing from fabrics I had on hand.  Raid your scrap bin for the fabrics for the three apples.

I already had my pants hanger because I used it to hang my upcycled jeans flag banner.  It looked cute all summer long, so when the seasons changed I thought it would be fun to make a new design to hang from it.

Here’s how to make a fall apple banner!

Materials

Clamp style wood pants hanger.  I looked at hangers at several stores before I purchased this one from Container Store.  The style of the top (no plastic pieces) better fit the style of the project.

Osnaburg or muslin, 13” x 34”

Fabric scraps for 3 applique apple designs

Fusible webbing

Temporary fabric marking pen (optional)

Free pattern

Create the fall apple banner

First, hem your rectangle of fabric with a ¼” double fold hem.  To do that, fold the edges ¼” to the back.  Give it a good press.  Then, fold another ¼” to the back, enclosing the raw edge.  Press again, then top stitch the hem in place.  Do this on all four sides of the fabric.

Trace the apple pieces to the paper backing of your fusible webbing.

Remember you’re tracing to the BACK of the fusible, so your shapes will be reversed when fused to the banner.  The only shape that’s going to be an issue with in this pattern is the stem.  You'll need to trace the reverse of the stem.  I actually cut 2 going one direction, and 1 going the other so I could alternate the direction of the stem on my apple appliques.

Cut around the shapes you’ve drawn.  There’s no need to be super detailed in your cutting yet.  In fact, I prefer to leave ¼” border around my shapes at this point.  Fuse the shapes you’ve cut out to the backs of your chosen applique fabrics.

Once you’ve fused the webbing to the back of the fabric, cut out your shapes on the lines you traced from the pattern.  Remove the paper backing and arrange your shapes on your banner.

Keep in mind that the top 2” of your banner will be inside the clamp.  Take that into account when laying out your design.  I found it easiest to mark a line across the banner 2” from the top using a temporary marking pen.  Then I could easily center my design vertically below that 2” mark.

Another tip for happy fusing:  When I fuse a design down to a large piece of fabric like this, I take my fabric to the ironing board BEFORE arranging all the pieces.  I’ve found they tend to shift if I try to move them.  If your ironing board isn’t big enough, you can create a temporary ironing table by placing towels on your worktable.  I usually use 3-4 layers of towel, smoothing them out to make sure there are no bumps.  I would NOT suggest doing this on a nice dining table or other surface you care deeply about, in case the towels don’t completely protect your table from the hot iron.

Follow manufacturer’s instructions to fuse the design down to the banner.

Finally, stitch around all the shapes close to the edge to secure.

You’re done!

Clamp your fall apple banner into the hanger and hang it on your door!

Looking for more fall door decoration projects?  Check out my Black Cat Brigade Halloween banner that features illustrations of all 5 of my black cats.