How to Make Your Own Two-Sticks

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This great instructional on home to make “Two-Sticks” was shamelessly stolen generously borrowed from the Portland Timber’s supporters group Timber’s Army. We hope to see lots of great Two-Sticks this year supporting the Roughnecks!

Two sticks are a great way to show your support for the Timbers Roughnecks. All you need is some fabric, pvc, paint, transparency paper, and an overhead projector to project your transparency onto the fabric. You can also just free hand a design or use a rasterbator program in lieu of a projector.

  1. The first step is to choose a design. Create one in Photoshop or whatever your favorite editing software is. You can also take pre-made designs such as the club crest, numbers, letters, etc. to make a design. After finalizing your image, print the design onto the transparency paper.
  2. Using an overhead, project your design onto a smooth wall for tracing. This is when to decide how big the two stick will be by adjusting the overhead accordingly. Once you have found the correct size, hang the fabric up on the wall to fit the design using either tape or pins. IMPORTANT: Remember to leave about 4-5 inches of dead space from the edge of the design to the side of the fabric on the vertical ends. This will come into play later when you are mounting your two stick.
  3. Once the fabric is secured to the wall take a sharpie and trace the lines of the design onto the fabric. Take care of your lines, but don’t worry too much about messing up, as you will just be painting over it later anyway. When done drawing the outlines, turn off the overhead to see if it looks like it should on the fabric. NOTE: Do not take down the fabric or move the overhead until you know the outlines are exactly how you want them. Once moved, you will never get them lined up exactly again, trust me.
  4. Ok, now that you have your design outlined on the fabric, you’re ready to paint! This is pretty straight forward, but try your best to stay in the lines! As someone who has messed up a two stick or two and is a tifo perfectionist, let me give you some advice when it comes to painting, don’t sweat the small stuff! No one is ever going to be looking at your two stick up close anyway, so don’t worry about a slip of paint here and there.
  5. Now your banner is done! But you want to make that banner into a two stick so there are a couple more steps left. To support the two stick’s 2 pvc poles, there will need to be 2 pockets on the edge of the banner. If you are a sewer, or can find someone who can sew, i would recommend sewing the pockets. If you are like me though and can’t sew at all, then stapling the pockets will work too. Lay the pvc poles on the fabric and then fold the fabric over the pole. Make it tight, but not so tight or it will probably rip quicker. This is where you sew/staple. Now all you need to do is close the top of the fold to make it a pocket.
  6. Your two stick is done! Hold it proudly above your head at every PTFC TRFC match home and away! If you wish you can leave it in the seats after the match and it can live with the other flags and banners, they like to live together. We’re still working on tifo storage, but we may be able to house these at the stadium somewhere.