Guest Post: Felt Garland from Leslie Astor |
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Our friend Leslie Astor is hosting “12 Days of Christmas Crafts” on her blog, Crafting a Beautiful Life. Leslie has graciously offered to share one of her crafts on CrafterNews.
We hope you’ll enjoy Leslie’s felt garland–sure to add a bit of color and whimsy to every Christmas tree!
To view the continuation of Leslie’s “12 Days of Christmas Crafts,” and even more fun projects from Leslie Astor, be sure to visit her website, Crafting a Beautiful Life.
Happy holidays!
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I wanted to pick a craft today that I could pick up and put down while I was working at the Brooklyn Craft Central Holiday Market. I remembered my bag full of felt strips from a garland I had started making for my tree two years ago, but never finished. At the time my son Jake was taking rock climbing classes twice a week after school, and I’d work on the garland while he bouldered and climbed walls painted to look like the Brooklyn Bridge. Now I bring travel crafts with me to Tae Kwon Do. Anyhow, to make my felt garland, I started with a bunch of sheets of felt. |
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Originally, I cut out the strips of felt using pinking shears, because the zig zag edges added such a nice decorative touch. But since I wanted to finish this project a little faster, I used a self-healing mat and wheel cutter to whiz through the cutting process. |
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In no time I ended up with this. |
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Before I began sewing the garland, I laid out a bunch of strips in the order of how they’d be sewn together. I chose a pattern of colors to repeat, but you could opt to do a random pattern too. |
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I closed my rings using a running stitch, which seemed a little faster than sewing with a regular straight stitch.
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Soon I had a beginning.
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And I worked on it little by little throughout the day.
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When I got home, I attached the old garland to the new one. Its just about long enough to wrap around the tree, but I think I’ll make another few yards so I can get more coverage. You can also make a shorter garland and hang it in a doorway or along a wall, but I love the way it looks on the tree.
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