kids that sew: diy felt holly garland

Every year we like to give something handmade to the teachers. Last year we made some soap but this year we decided to go for a bit of festive decoration!!

I made a few of these myself a couple years ago but thought my girls were of an age to have a go themselves as it is a relatively straightforward tutorial. I found that they just needed a bit of support to feed the new pieces of felt into the sewing machine, so you might find your little ones need you as a guide at this point too.

What you’ll need:

// light, dark green and red felt
// 2 pieces of red ribbon (8 inches each)
// decent fabric scissors (these are great and are from Ikea)

The beauty of this is that you can make your garland as long or as short as you want, just make sure you have enough felt!

// I cut out a stencil for the girls to draw around and cut their holly leaves. I had rectangles of felt pre cut for them and also some red squares that they curved around to make the berries.

// They cut 3 pairs of each colour for their garland.

// Once you have all your pieces cut you are ready to sew!

// Loop one piece of your ribbon and place behind first felt holly leaf. Reverse stitch in place and begin sewing along the centre of the leaf. We pinned the berry in place to make it easier to feed it through but keep an eye as it can easily get caught on the foot and wrinkle up. Feed in other holly leaf and your first leaves are in place.

// Alternate dark and light leaves as the picture shows. Don’t worry if there is a little stitching between the pairs of leaves as I think this looks really pretty as it spins when hung.

// Keep going until you have used all your felt pieces and loop the other piece of ribbon on to the back of the last holly leaf.

// Pull through all threads, knot and trim.

// Go hang somewhere pretty or wrap as a gift for someone special!