I haven’t done a lot of embroidery in my time, but I’ve been (very) gradually trying to stitch my way into it and expand my crafty repertoire. I started out with a kit (specifically, the Woodland Fox Embroidery Kit from Tales from the Hoop, a UK-based company run by Marion, who makes incredible, modern embroidery kits & patterns). Next, filled with a (completely irrational) sense of confidence, I designed and stitched my own hoop-based project: a Feathers McGraw hoop for my sister-in-law.

For my next embroidery project, I decided to make a felt garland. Tales from the Hoop has these gorgeous festive letter kits for sale, which feature a minimal, super pretty, pine design. I fell in love with this design the moment I saw it and I thought it would make for such a special Christmas ‘heirloom’ decoration. I’ve been slowly working on it over the past few months, really taking my time to enjoy the process, and I just love how it turned out!

Table of Contents

• The Kit
• The Stitching Process
• Stringing the Letters into a Garland
• Final Thoughts

The Kit

As I mentioned, I made this garland using the Personalized Christmas Felt Letter Kit from Tales from the Hoop. You can buy as many or as few letters as you want: they can be used individually, as baubles, miscellaneous decorations or gift tags, or you can purchase multiple letters and make a garland (which is, obviously, what I did).

A single-letter kit costs £18.50 and you receive the felt (including one sheet printed with the pine pattern/letter outline), 2 embroidery needles, all of the necessary threads, gold beads, stuffing, pins and detailed, printed instructions. Each additional letter only increases the price by £2.50, so, if you plan to make multiple letters, I’d definitely recommend buying them all in one go to save yourself some money!

For this garland, I purchased a 14-letter kit. Currently, this is priced at £51.00, but I actually bought mine back in July for £45.90 (it’s very possible I bought the kit on sale? Or this could just be the inevitable result of rising costs here in the UK). Even at the higher price, I still think this kit is worth it!

You can select which letters you want for your garland/ornaments in the ‘Personalisation’ section of the order, so I opted for the letters to spell out ‘MERRY AND BRIGHT’. I went back and forth a lot between this and the more classic ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ (which unhelpfully contains the same number of letters, so I couldn’t even use the cheaper price as a deciding factor), but I ultimately decided to go with the former because I figured we probably had enough garlands telling everyone to have a Merry Christmas already.

Just like the last time I placed an order from Tales from the Hoop, I had a lovely experience: my kit came super quickly & contained plenty of all of the necessary materials, the instructions were clear & easy to follow AND the finished product looks great!

The Stitching Process

The stitching process was actually pretty simple and straightforward, which was lovely because it meant that I could really relax into the stitching and just chip away at the garland slowly. For reference, the kit uses the following stitching techniques:

• Back stitch
• French knots
• Beading
• Blanket stitch

I had done all of these stitches before except for beading, which was new to me, but was really simple to do and I absolutely love the sparkly effect the beads add: I think they’re such a pretty addition that really makes the letters feel special. This project was also a really good way of practising my French knots & blanket stitching: I got pretty good at the latter, but I do still struggle with the former! I can just about do them now, but they’re not always as neat as I would like! French knots, I’ll be back for you. This isn’t over.

Honestly, the hardest part of making these was cutting out the tiny, internal pieces of felt from some of the letters (the ones like R, A and, in particular, B, which had TWO internal pieces!). It was a bit fiddly, but I found that using a small, sharp pair of scissors made it (a little) easier.

Surprisingly, though, the letter I found the absolute hardest to do was the ‘G’! I think it just required a lot of stitching and I felt like it was slightly more prone to bending out of shape than the other letters. Obviously, the easiest letter was the ‘I’ because it was literally a single, straight line: the dream!

Stringing the Letters into a Garland

Stringing the letters together was also surprisingly easier than I expected it to be: the stuffing helps to keep the letters in position, so I just carefully lined up each one (I tried to go through where the brown stitch line ended at the top of each letter, to keep things even) and went for it.

The great thing about this whole process is the fact that you can work a stitch, add a letter, add a bead, whatever and, if you don’t like the positioning/how it looks, you can literally just take it out and start again. For someone like me, who has a deathly fear of making mistakes (I know, I know— I’m working on it!), this was a real comfort and made the whole process that bit more relaxing.

The only slight stumbling block I encountered was that I’m pretty sure I accidentally cut through one of my blanket stitches when I was rearranging the top thread on my ‘G’ (why is it ALWAYS the ‘G’?!). I haven’t noticed any drastic unravelling yet though, so let’s all keep our fingers crossed that it stays that way!

Final Thoughts

I loved working on this project almost as much as I love the finished garland: it feels so classic and festive, but still fun and whimsical at the same time, and it makes me so proud every time I look at it (because, you know, I made that!).

It definitely took a bit of time to make, but that was because a) I intentionally took it slow so that I could really enjoy the process and b) I had 14 letters to stitch! If you were just making one letter, it would actually be a really quick little project: you could probably whip it up in a couple of hours!

I definitely felt a few moments of pressure during the process (particularly when it was time to cut out the letters post-embroidery, because, well, what if I did it wrong and ruined all my hard work?!), but I never actually ran into any of the problems I was anxious about, which felt great.

Overall, making this garland was a very rewarding, therapeutic experience: I can’t wait to bring it out every year and feel all warm and cosy knowing I made it!

Gemma

xxx

My sister-in-law is a big fan of Wallace and Gromit and, last Christmas, a new instalment of the franchise was released: Vengeance Most Fowl, in which the iconic villain, Feathers McGraw, resurfaced and caused general havoc (it was great fun). I began daydreaming about embroidering a version of the iconic Feathers McGraw ‘Wanted’ poster as a Christmas present for her, despite the fact that a) I had about 5000 other festive projects on the go and b) I did not, as previously highlighted, have the requisite embroidery skills to actually pull it off. While I didn’t get around to this in time for Christmas, I was determined to (at least!) attempt it ahead of her birthday, which was earlier this month. So, attempt it I did and… it turned out PERFECTLY. What a fun turn of events!

I’m not usually one for going into a project blind: I typically like to research and prepare and consider and practice lots before I begin anything. This time around, though, I just went for it: I researched each technique as and when I needed it, but otherwise I just got stuck in and hoped for the best. And somehow, miraculously, it worked out! I am truly SO proud of this little project, so I thought I’d share the whole process with you today, including the thread colours I chose, the stitches I used for each section and the general techniques I used throughout.

So, if you want to make your own Feathers McGraw Embroidery (and who wouldn’t?), you’re in the right place! If you don’t, but you’re ready to witness me stitching way out of my depth, I hope you enjoy this post anyway!

Table of Contents

• Materials
• Preparing the Fabric
• Tracing the Design
• Preparing the Hoop
• Stitching Process
  • Feathers McGraw
    • Beak
    • Glove-Hat
    • Tummy
    • Body
    • Eyes
    • Outline
  • Mugshot Outline
  • Lettering
    • ‘WANTED’
    • ‘POLICE NOTICE’
    • ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHICKEN? £1000 REWARD’
• Removing the Pen Markings
• Gathering the Fabric
• Adding the Felt Backing
• Final Thoughts

Materials

To make this Feathers McGraw Embroidery, I used the following materials/equipment:

• Embroidery hoop.

Any size hoop would work for this, but I opted for a 15cm one here, which was a nice, medium-ish size.

• Calico fabric.

I had some leftover calico lying around from another project, so I just used that. I wanted something with a slight beige/natural colour, to mimic a slightly aged ‘wanted’ poster, so this was perfect.

My calico was quite thin, so I found that a single layer of it was a little too see-through for what I wanted. I ended up just cutting two pieces and layering them together in the hoop, treating them as one piece and stitching through both as I worked. This meant that you couldn’t see the back of my stitching through the fabric from the front, so I was happy!

• iPad.

I used my iPad to easily trace my design onto the fabric (more details on this later!). If you don’t have an iPad though, there are lots of other ways to do this & plenty of online tutorials for it, so don’t worry!

• Clover water-soluble fabric marking pen, fine.

Using a water-soluble fabric pen to trace out your design is a great idea, because you can just wash it away once you’ve finished stitching and be left with a super neat-looking piece. I chose a fine tipped pen for this because some of the design details were quite small/intricate.

• Pliers.

I find a pair of pliers incredibly helpful for tightening embroidery hoops up: they need to be super securely tightened to keep the fabric in place and the pliers make this much easier.

• Embroidery needle.

I’ll be honest: I have no idea about the different types/variations of needles: I just used the one I got in my Tales From the Hoop kit! It’s a very fine needle with a sharp point (which I figure are the two main necessities for embroidery).

• Magnetic needle minder.

This isn’t strictly necessary, but it is SO helpful for keeping track of your needle. You just attach it the needle minder to your work using the magnet and then you can snap your needle to it super easily any time you want to put the project down/cut new thread.

• Scissors.

This is just for cutting threads + fabrics, but it’s a necessary piece of equipment nonetheless!

• DMC cotton stranded thread (shades: Grey 0413, Grey 0317, BLANC, Orange 3827, Beige 3856, Brown 3722 and Pink 0761).

I chose my thread colours online, so they aren’t necessarily perfect matches to the original poster, but they’re pretty close! The two grey shades are a bit more similar to each other than I intended though: I would have liked a little more contrast between them to really highlight the shadows on the body.

• Felt.

I decided to back my embroidery hoop with a circle of felt, just because I think it looks super neat (and hides a multitude of sins). I had some leftover red wool felt from the Starry Garland I made a couple of years ago, so I just used that.

Preparing the Fabric

As I mentioned, I used two squares of plain, calico fabric (each square was about 20x20cm: just a bit larger than my hoop), one stacked on top of the other, to make the base more opaque.

I ironed both pieces of fabric individually, taking my time and making sure they were completely smooth. This is an unfortunate (for those of us who do not enjoy ironing, anyway), but necessary, step for the smoothest, most even-looking results later on!

Tracing the Design

When tracing the design, I worked with just one of the fabric layers: the layer that will be on top when the fabric goes into the hoop. Here, the relative translucency of my fabric actually worked out for me, as it made it much easier to trace from the iPad! If you’re using a thicker fabric, you might need to use a different tracing method.

To trace a design from an iPad, turn your brightness up all the way (this helps to make the screen visible through the fabric)), then follow the steps below to activate ‘Guided Access‘ on your tablet:

• Go to Settings.
• Go to Accessibility.
• Go to Guided Access (under General).
• Toggle Guided Access on.

Using Guided Access prevents the image on your screen from moving around as you trace it, which is super important! Once you’ve set it up, you just need to press the lock button on your tablet 3 times in quick succession to trigger it (it will ask you to set a passcode, but once you’ve done that, you’ll be ready to go!).

Bring up the image you want to trace (in this case, the Feathers McGraw ‘Wanted’ poster: I used this image from Amazon).

Set your empty hoop on top of your iPad screen to give yourself a clearer idea of the required size. Zoom in/out until you are happy with the size of the design, then turn on Guided Access by triple-clicking the lock button.

Lay your fabric on top of your iPad screen, then use the water-soluble fabric marker to trace it. I found it helpful to roughly map out the different patches of colour on Feathers McGraw’s body, beak and hat, as well as indicating the precise location of the white ‘glint’ in his eyes.

I found that the lettering was the trickiest bit to trace— I went a bit wonky with it and had to correct it later on! With more complex lettering with serifs etc. (like the one in this poster) I found it easier to just trace the letters in block capitals and add the serifs later while embroidering, using the original image as a reference guide.

Preparing the Hoop

Once you’re happy with your design, you can place the fabric into the hoop. If you’re using two pieces of fabric sandwiched together like me, make sure to put both into the hoop at this stage.

Unscrew the mechanism at the top of the hoop so that you can separate the inner hoop from the outer hoop.

Lay your prepared fabric (with the marked piece on top) over the inner hoop, making sure the design is centred.

Press the outer hoop on top of this, pushing it down, so that the fabric is sandwiched between the two hoops.

Tighten the mechanism at the top back up (I like to use pliers to make sure it is super tight and secure at this point), gently pulling the fabric taut all the way around the circumference of the hoop as you do so. You want the fabric to be completely smooth and taut all across the surface of the hoop, so just take it slow and do it little by little, tightening and pulling as needed.

With that done, you’re ready to start stitching!

Stitching Process

I started stitching the mugshot of Feathers, beginning with what felt like the least the challenging element (the beak) and working my way up to what felt like the most challenging element (the eyes). After that, I worked the rectangular outline around the mugshot, then the largest ‘WANTED’ letters at the top, then the smaller text above that, then, finally, the text at the bottom.

Throughout the embroidery itself, I used 1 strand of thread everywhere except for the white glint in his eyes and the outline around the mugshot, where I used 2 strands. This might feel a bit tedious, but I found it actually gave me more control and gave a more seamless, neat look, so it was worth it!

Feathers McGraw

For the image of Feathers McGraw, I used a combination of split stitch, long & short stitch and French knots.

For the main blocks of colour, I focused on one section of the image at a time. I worked a split stitch outline in either the lightest/most prominent (around the edges) colour, then filled in the shape with long & short stitch, working over the split stitch outline for a smooth finish.

Beak

For the beak, I used the shades Orange 3827 and Beige 3856. I worked the split stitch outline in Orange 3827, then filled in the outer portion of the beak all the way around with that same thread. I then used the lighter Beige 3856 to fill in the centre of the beak.

Glove-Hat

For the glove-hat, I used the shades Brown 3722, Pink 0761 and BLANC. I worked the split stitch outline in Pink 0761, then added the darker shadows to the left-hand side using Brown 3722. I filled in the majority of the hat with Pink 0761, then added the white highlight to the right-hand side using BLANC.

Tummy

For the tummy, I used the shade BLANC for both the outline and the long & short stitches.

Body

For the body, I used the shades BLANC, Grey 0413 and Grey 0317. I used BLANC for the outline, then worked from the outside in, so the white sections first, then the paler grey section, then the darkest grey section, making sure to leave space for the eyes.

Eyes

For the eyes, I used the shades BLANC and Grey 0413. I started by working a single French knot using two strands of BLANC in each eye, placing it slightly up and to the right of the centre of each one. I then worked a series of smaller French knots, using one strand of Grey 0413, to fill in the remaining eye space in a circle formation.

Outline

After I had filled in all of the colour blocks, I used a single thread of Grey 0413 and split stitch to work an outline all the way around each section of the image, following where the lines are in the original poster.

Mugshot Outline

For the outline of the mugshot, I used two strands of Grey 0413 and a whipped back stitch to create a thicker, smoother line.

Lettering

Truthfully, the lettering was the part of this project that I was most worried about, just because it’s not something I’ve ever stitched before AND the font was relatively complex (it features a lot of serifs/varied thicknesses). It did end up being the trickiest, most time-consuming part, but I think it turned out really well!

For all of the lettering throughout this project, I used one strand of Grey 0413. I used a combination of split stitch, back stitch, whipped back stitch, long & short stitch and a lone French knot to achieve the variations in the fonts.

‘WANTED’

The ‘WANTED’ lettering above the mugshot is the largest in the design. I went letter-by-letter, stitching the outlines with split stitch, then filling in the thicker sections with long & short stitch. I’d gone a bit wonky when tracing the text here, so I adjusted each letter when stitching so that they were more evenly lined up.

‘POLICE NOTICE’

From the largest to the smallest, the ‘POLICE NOTICE’ text at the top of the design is SO TINY and CUTE, but it required a lot of concentration to stitch! I used a simple back stitch for this section because it was so tiny, so I didn’t think the slight gaps between the stitches would matter too much.

‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CHICKEN? £1000 REWARD’

This was the largest block of text in the design (and definitely took the longest!). I used a regular back stitch to stitch all of the letters/serifs, then turned that stitching into a whipped back stitch in the areas of the letters that appear a little thicker on the poster.

For the dot at the base of the question mark, I used a single French knot.

I did go a little askew with the bottom line of text (I made my ‘W’ too wide and it threw off the centralisation!), but what can you do? Live and learn, I guess!

Removing the Pen Markings

With all of the stitching done, it was time to remove the remnants of the pen markings. To do this, I removed the fabric from the hoop and filled a basin with room temperature water, along with some dish soap (and a colour catcher, because I wasn’t taking any chances!).

I submerged the embroidered fabric in the basin, then left it to soak for 30 minutes or so.

After 30 minutes, the pen markings had completely disappeared! I removed the fabric from the water and pressed it between two E-cloths to remove as much of the water as possible (without scrunching/creasing the fabric), then left it to air dry on a drying rack in a warm place.

Gathering the Fabric

Once the fabric was completely dry, I put it back into the hoop in the exact same way as before, making sure the design was centred and tightening the mechanism as much as possible.

Once I was happy with the position/tautness of the fabric, I trimmed the excess fabric into a rough circle, about 5cm larger than the hoop itself.

I then used a rough running stitch to gather up the excess fabric at the back of the hoop. I started by using a full piece of embroidery floss, working the stitches about halfway in from the edge of the fabric. However, I found that this didn’t quite pull the fabric in enough, so I ended up adding another, smaller line of running stitches, closer to the edge and using only 2 strands of thread to gather it in a little more, which helped!

To keep the gathering in place, you need to tie off the threads super tightly and securely, otherwise it might come loose.

Adding the Felt Backing

You can leave the hoop as it is, with the gathered back, but I’m not crazy about how it looks (especially with my chaotic stitching), so I decided to add a felt backing.

Because this was a last minute addition, I had already secured my project into its hoop and couldn’t trace the inner hoop onto the felt, so I just measured it and used a good ol’ fashioned compass to mark the right-sized circle onto my felt instead, which I then cut out carefully.

I laid the felt circle on top of the back of the hoop, making sure it was centred, then used 2 threads of Brown 3722 to work a simple blanket stitch all the way around the circle to secure it.

Final Thoughts

I am SO PROUD of how this project turned out! It’s exactly how I imagined it would be in my head, which is super rare (and surprising, given how little experience I had in the embroidery department!). I feel very powerful now, like I could embroider anything I put my mind to! Thought maybe that is a dangerous state of mind…

One of the things I like most about this project is that it really is just an amalgamation of relatively simple stitches, but they come together to make something that actually looks quite professional! For reference, I used the following stitches in this project: split stitch, back stitch, whipped back stitch, French knots, long & short stitch and blanket stitch (so really, nothing too crazy!)

I am a little disappointed by the off-centre bottom line of text, but all homemade things have a few quirks and quibbles, so I guess that’s just the way the cookie crumbles! I’m very happy with the image of Feathers himself and, actually, by how nice the blanket stitches look on the felt back! I’m very glad I made the decision to add that backing— I think it really finishes it off nicely.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my foray into the world of embroidery: I definitely enjoyed the process! If you do make your own Feathers McGraw embroidery, I’d love to see/hear about it!

Gemma

xxx

Today’s post is something a little bit new to the blog- it’s still fun and crafty, but it’s not a craft that I am super well-versed in. In this post, I’ll be showing you how I made this hand sewn, wool felt garland for my mum’s birthday present.

Let me be honest, I have NO idea where the inspiration for this project came from. I feel that there must have been something that made me want to make it, but I truly have no idea what. Oh, well. Maybe I just dream in craft projects. I also don’t know what made me make this for my mum, because while it’s… kind of her style? It could also very much not be her style. I think I just designed and made it with her in mind. How bespoke! Anyway, by the time you’re reading this, I guess I’ll know one way or the other! Fingers crossed. (Update: she likes it! What a relief!).

Table of Contents

• Equipment + Supplies
• Making the Felt Stars
• Stringing the Garland
  • Troubleshooting
• Final Thoughts

Equipment + Supplies

To make this Starry Garland, you will need:

• Felt

My mum loves all things wool, so I decided to use real wool felt for this project. I bought mine from SuesCountryCreations on Etsy. There is such a good selection of colours that you can pick and choose from- I purchased 6 sheets and chose the colours Ruby, Fox, Gold, Moss, Petrol Blue and Mulberry (I was going for a kind of deep-toned rainbow). You don’t need loads of each colour, so you can use any leftovers for another project.

• Felt balls

I decided to use plain, ivory felt balls for this, because, even though I was using lots of colours of felt, I still wanted the garland to look kind of… elegant and intentionally mismatched- both mismatched and matched, all at once, I suppose. I purchased this 20-pack from PocketCraftSupplies (also on Etsy) and ended up using 19 balls in the finished garland.

• Twine

I was a while deciding what I wanted to string my felt components onto and I eventually settled on using twine. It did make threading them a little trickier (because the twine is thicker than typical thread/string), but I did develop a successful stringing technique along the way (more on that later!). This twine was actually from Wilko’s, years ago, but I’m sure you can find a similar product online.

My finished garland was about 340cm long, but I started with a length of twine that was about 400cm, to account for the knots/loops (plus, it’s better to have too much than not enough!).

• Star template

I just printed off an outline of a star (about 8cm wide) on some paper for this. I then cut around it and used it as a guide for cutting out all of the felt stars for the garland.

• Handsewing needles

Yep- you’ll need two for this garland. A standard one for sewing the felt stars together with the sewing thread and a longer one, with a larger eye, for threading the garland together. The larger eye is necessary because the twine is much thicker than sewing thread, while the length just makes it easier to guide it through the felt stars/balls.

• Pliers

At first, I could NOT find a way to thread the twine through the felt balls- it was just too thick at the eye of the needle, where it is also doubled. Eventually, I discovered that if you push the needle as far as you can through the felt ball, you can use the pliers to grip the needle more firmly and pull it through the rest of the way. Just make sure your needle is sturdy enough to withhold the force!

• Pins + pin cushion

To cut out the star shapes from the felt, I pinned the template to the felt, then drew around it with a pen.- I found this was the easiest and most accurate method. The pin cushion will come in handy for storing the pins, but also for keeping track of your needles while sewing/threading the final garland! I also used a pin to distribute the stuffing within the finished stars more evenly.

• Sewing thread

This is for sewing the felt stars together, so, ideally, you want to have a matching thread for each of your colours of felt. Alternatively, you could embrace the contrast and use one contrasting thread for all of them- perhaps white?.

• Stuffing

I added a small amount of stuffing to the centre of each of my felt stars, just to give them a little bit of ✨poof✨.

• Sharp sewing scissors

To cut the felt and the thread. Using sharp scissors will make sure all of your cuts are nice and clean, which will make your finished felt stars look super neat. In the photo above, you can see my round-tipped scissors- I very quickly gave up on these and switched to a pair with a sharp tip, which made cutting out the star shapes much easier.

• Pen

As I mentioned, I found that the best way to cut out the star shapes from the felt was to pin the template to the felt and trace around it with a pen. If you’re using a particularly dark colour of felt, you might find it easier to use a white pen.

Making the Felt Stars

For the garland pictured, I made 3 felt stars in each colour of felt, for a total of 18 stars. You will need to cut out 2 star shapes from the felt for each finished star, so, in total, I cut 6 from each colour.

As I mentioned earlier, I found that the best way to cut out the stars was to pin the template onto the felt with a pin. I then traced around the secured template with a ballpoint pen, before removing the template and cutting around the shape. This gave the most accurate results.

Pair up the stars and place them wrong sides together (in this case, the wrong side is the one with the pen markings on it. By sandwiching the pen in the centre of the star, you hide it from view in the finished stars).

Take the sewing thread that matches your felt, cut a long length of it and tie a knot in the end. If you aren’t super confident at hand sewing, start with a shorter length of thread. You will need to fasten off and rejoin a new thread part of the way around the star, but you will be much less likely to get in a tangle (if your thread does get knotted, try not to pull it too much as this will tighten the knot- I find that you can usually untangle the thread by inserting the tip of the needle into the knot and gently tugging the various threads around it until it comes loose. This won’t always work though, especially if the knot is super tight!).

With the two stars lined up together, hide the knot on the inside (between the two layers), then blanket stitch around the perimeter, leaving one of the points unstitched for stuffing (but do not cut the thread).

Once you have stitched around 4 of the points, lightly stuff the centre of the shape. Once stuffed, finish stitching the final point, then secure the thread and fasten it off.

At this point, I used a pin to distribute the stuffing into the points a little more, just to even everything out, but this is optional.

Once you are happy with your star, repeat this process for all of your colours of felt, until you have a mound of plushy rainbow stars.

Stringing the Garland

Once you have all of your stars, you need to string them into a garland. Cut a length of twine- for this garland, I used about 400cm, then make a loop in one end. I am useless at knots, so I just followed this tutorial and it seemed to work fine!

It’s up to you how far apart you want to space out each element of the garland. I went for a 5cm gap between the felt stars/balls, but you can do whatever you want, as long as you’re consistent!

To thread the felt elements, tie a knot where you want the first element to start (I made mine 5cm from the knotted part of the loop). Thread the element on, until it hits that knot, then tie another knot after the element, to lock it in place. Measure another 5cm from that second knot and tie another one for the next element to sit against, and so on.

Once you have used up all of your elements (I used 18 stars and 19 felt balls), cut off some of the excess twine, then measure 5cm and tie another loop for the other end. With that, your garland is finished! Hang it by the loops at either end, and/or use command hooks to place it exactly where you want it.

Troubleshooting

Because this process can feel a little tricky, I have put together some tips and tricks for the garland-stringing process:

• To prevent getting into a tangle with the long length of twine:

You need a long length of twine to make this garland, which means there’s a high chance of it getting tangled. To prevent this, keep the twine threaded on your needle at all times (and preferably, stick the needle into a pin cushion when you’re not holding it, so you don’t lose it!). If you’re working at a desk, let the threaded end of the garland hang down on one side of you, and the non-threaded parts on the other. When threading, pull a length of twine through, then let it fall on the side with the non-threaded parts. Keep doing this, keeping the lengths long and tossing them in that direction, so they don’t get tangled.

• To tie knots in specific places:

It can be a little tricky to tie a knot in a specific location. I found the easiest way to do it was to lay a ruler flat on the desk in front of me. When I tied the knot, I would line the previous knot up on the zero mark, then slowly tighten the new knot, manoeuvring it towards the 5cm mark as I went. You don’t have to be too perfect, but using the ruler as a guide will help your garland to look more even.

• To tie the knots without getting into a tangle:

When tying the knots, hold the thread closest to the intended location between the thumb and fourth/little finger of your non-dominant hand and hold the needle in your dominant hand.

Loop your needle over the thread, bring it under it (above where you are holding it with your non-dominant hand),then bring it out between the ‘loop’ of twine you have created to form the knot (see above image).

When pulling the long length of twine through to tighten the knot, hook your index finger under the twine from the needle (as pictured) and, as you pull, allow the thread to ‘run’ over that finger. This will help you keep it in place and stop it from tangling.

• Threading the felt balls:

As I mentioned earlier, I found that I needed to use pliers to thread the felt balls. To do this, I pushed the needle (threaded with the twine) into the ball, being careful to stay as close to the centre as possible, so the ball sits evenly. The needle should come out on the other side of the ball, but will be prevented from going all the way through by the added thickness of the doubled-over twine/eye. At this point, grasp the pointy end of the needle with the pliers and pull the needle through like that. The extra grip and strength will make the process so much easier!

• Threading the felt stars:

Thread the stars through one inner corner and one outer corner, as pictured. This will make sure they sit evenly on the twine. I found it easiest to find the inner corner with the largest gap between the stitches, insert the needle there, then gathered the felt over the needle until it comes out on the opposite point.

Final Thoughts

I’m so happy with how this garland turned out! It was a little bit of a random project, but I really just followed my ✨vision✨ and I was very lucky that everything worked out. It was a little bit of a labour of love- I mean, the stringing process only took a few hours, but sewing all of the stars together definitely took a while.

I realise this tutorial might seem a bit overwhelming at first, but I have tried to include as many photos as possible to help illustrate all of my ramblings! I’d love to hear if you give this Starry Garland tutorial a go- let me know in the comments below!

Gemma

xxx