Our chicken yard is newly decorated with circus-like oil cloth buntings. They make me smile while detering aerial predators like hawks. Birds who might take chickens don't think they have enough space to land and fly away again with the buntings in the way.
I made the buntings with five coordinating oil cloth patterns from local fabric store Sew to Speak. Oil cloth is vinyl bonded on a cotton mesh base, making it a sturdy, outdoor-friendly fabric.
I cut each selection into strips 10-inches wide. Then, I placed removable tape on my cutting board every eight inches, staggering the bottom row by four inches, as markers for cutting. I used a rotary cutter and a straight edge to cut the strips two layers at a time into isosceles triangles.
Next, I made four stacks of triangles with a random pattern assortment. My brain naturally tends toward order, so I had to watch that I was selecting randomly.
The Sew to Speak employee suggested twill tape as a binding/stringing material but they only had cotton and I wanted something that would hold up to constant outdoor use. I looked for polyester twill tape locally but found none in large lengths, so I purchased a roll of twill ribbon
I assembled the buntings by inserting oil cloth triangles as I sewed the folded twill tape together, leaving approximately 18 inches at each end with no oil cloth for ties.
In the end, the chicken-yard circus buntings cost me about $40 in materials and 4 hours of time. I could have used boat rope (Alex's suggestion) to achieve the same predator-deterring effect, but I prefer the color and whimsy of this little project. What do you think?