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?

...learning to sew

I made a post a couple of weeks ago describing some of my sewing fears (Saturday morning sewing), and I have decided to do something about it.

Sewing is supposed to be something I enjoy and when it gets to the point where it is not enjoyable and I was beginning to question why I was doing it I took a step back and had a think.  I decided that I was being a bit hard on myself and that because there is so much free information and self help videos on the internet that I can learn all I need to know and while this method has been very helpful it has not given me all the answers I am looking for, so I have signed up for a 6 week sewing class.

We will be using the new look 6176 pattern

http://www.simplicitynewlook.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=6176#.VRfahvnF-QA



The course sets out to

• show how to measure yourself to get a correctly fitting garment

• how to interpret all the pattern markings

• cutting out and tacking your garment in preparation for sewing

• techniques for darts, seams, hems, buttonholes and zips

This seems to tick off a lot of things that I have been struggling with and that in turn should help with building my confidence.

I am also looking forward to the camaraderie and inclusion that usually comes in this type of learning environment. 

Have you made new Look 6176? Do you have any top tips?