DIY Felt Garland

DIY Felt Garland: use old wool sweaters to make your own felt in any colour, and then cut out, and sew into a garland with your sewing machine.

I love this amazing DIY felt garland I created out of old wool sweaters.  It’s really fun to make and you could make it any colour you like to match your decor or occasion.

Materials:

• all wool sweaters from the thrift store
• golf balls
• pillow case
• scissors
• sewing machine 
• thread

How To Make A DIY Felt Garland

I picked up some wool sweaters at the thrift store to make my garland.  They were all in creams and whites, but you can use any colour you like.  I started out by felting the sweaters, which means you can leave a raw edge and it won’t fray, just like regular felt.

Making Felt

To create felt you need to find wool sweaters, and for these which are a little extra special, I also used some with other animal fibres, including a blend of cashmere and angora. Here they are before.

To turn the sweaters into felt, you wash them in your washing machine with hot water, and dry them in your dryer on high heat. I read a few on-line tutorials which suggested you wash them in a pillow case to collect the fuzz that is created and can clog up your washer, and also throw in a few golf balls. 

After the wash, I was amazed by the amount of fuzz in the pillowcase. I was also amazed at how felted they were, they shrunk a great deal, and the felt that was created is far thicker than any I’ve had in the past with just a simple hot wash without the pillowcase and golf balls.

I love the cream fuzzy felt so much, and thought that cut into circles and sewed into garland it would make a delicate garland reminiscent of snowballs. 

Cutting Circles

To begin with, first I traced several small sizes of circles on my three different sweaters, which all made slightly different felt, some thicker, some fuzzier. I used a small container, a spool, and a penny as my patterns. The penny looks cute, but was difficult to sew because it is so small.  You will need really sharp scissors to make felt cutting a little easier.

After a lot of cutting!

Sewing The DIY Felt Garland

It was time to sew. You start stitching the first circle and continue stitching after it feeds through the machine for a few seconds, then you stop the machine and lift the foot to feed in the next circle. You stitch it, and continue on again, and just repeat that over and over to your desired length.

I love the look of a random pattern, so I choose the size of the circle at random, and varied the length of space between circles, but you could follow a pattern, and or, count how many seconds of space you stitch to create a pattern.

I love how it turned out, especially the way it actually looks soft. It does kind of look like snowballs.

I added it to the fireplace mantel in my living room.  A little tip for attaching a garland to your fireplace without having to leave nail holes in the wood is to use suction cup hooks.

This fireplace holds my Christmas glitter house village. I made the village houses entirely out of old cereal boxes, see how I did it here.

This project really was simple, and I’d love to try it for a party with coloured felt circles or in a shape that matched the party theme. The possibilities are endless.

With a DIY felt garland, life really is a party!

You might also like DIY Mushroom Christmas Ornaments here.

Also check out Cricut Wood Feather Ornaments here.

You might also enjoy our Book Page Paper Feathers here.