Felt Holly Garland - 50 makes of Christmas 3/50

I have accumulated bits and pieces of green felt in various shades and I think I have found the ideal project for using some of them up.

Felt Holly Garland

This is my kind of projects, simple to make but adds great impact.

I used felt in 3 different shades of green, but one shade would work well too

A holly leaf template taken from this blog post by Wild Olive, some of mine were a little mishapen but that just adds to the charm, if I wanted perfect i wouldn't be making my own!

Green thread to sew it all together, I used up the end of two different shades from my vintage stash

Red buttons to represent berries, these were raided from my vintage collection.

Adding Vintage Buttons

The amount of leaves you need will depend on the finished length of your garland as a rough guide I cut about 45 leaves and when put end to end they measured a little over 10 feet! I did lose a couple that got eaten up by the sewing machine.

I used my sewing machine but I think you could also sew by hand although it would take quite some time. Aiming for the centre of the leaf sew along, leave a few stitches before attaching a new leaf to the end of the previous one the short space between the leaves is to help with the "hang"

Holly Garland

I raided my vintage button collection for some nice shiny red buttons for a final flourish.

Vintage button stash

While I had no qualms about getting ahead and making this in July it did feel a little odd to be hanging it up but I wanted to give you an idea of what it looks like.

Hanging Holly Garland

I have stored it on one of my old industrial bobbins and I have tucked it away in the spare room ready to be hung a lot nearer to Christmas.

Vintage Industrial Bobbin

So that is 3 Makes for Christmas in the bag and just 47 left to make.

How are you getting on with your advanced preparations? or are you waiting until later in the year?