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

Last year, just before Christmas, I saw this amazing crochet garland on Instagram by @deliacreates. It was designed to look like a string of popcorn and cranberries, which is a festive tradition in the US that I have always been fascinated by! I could never bring myself to sacrifice so much delicious popcorn in the pursuit of pretty, Christmassy decor (I love popcorn), so a crocheted version felt like the perfect, fun alternative. As an added bonus, the (free!) pattern looked super simple and straightforward, so I knew this would be a quick and easy project for the festive season. Unfortunately, I saw the post a little too late to make a garland in time for Christmas last year, so I carried it over and made it this year, instead!

Table of Contents

• Materials
  • Cygnet Seriously Chunky: Mini Review
• Making the Garland
• Final Thoughts

Materials

To make this garland, I used the following materials:

• 1 skein of Cygnet Seriously Chunky yarn, in the shade Cream (0288).
• 87 x 12mm dark red wooden beads (I bought this pack of 100 on Etsy).*
• 6.50mm crochet hook.
• 3.00mm crochet hook.**

That’s it! Because I already had the crochet hooks, I only had to buy the yarn and the beads (which worked out at just under £6), so this was a super budget-friendly project!

* The original pattern used bright red beads, but I wanted a more realistic-looking, muted garland, so I opted to use these dark red beads, which I felt had more of a cranberry vibe!

** The original pattern calls for a 3.25mm hook, but I found a 3.00mm hook was easier to insert through the beads and worked just as well.

Cygnet Seriously Chunky: Mini Review

Cygnet Seriously Chunky is a 100% acrylic, super chunky weight yarn that is sold in 100g skeins. Each 100g skein contains about 48 metres of yarn and (at time of posting), costs £2.99 on Wool Warehouse (my go-to for yarn-y purchases!). The yarn comes in a variety of colours (though it’s not the most extensive shade range I’ve seen), and I chose the shade Cream (0288) for this project, which was a nice, neutral, popcorn-esque colour.

I have to say, I truly forgot that this was an acrylic yarn as I was working with it- it has a real, wooly ‘fuzz’ to it that really tricked me into thinking it was made of natural fibres. While the ‘fuzzy’ look probably wasn’t quite the right vibe for making popcorn kernels, I do think this would be a great, budget alternative to a natural fibre yarn for other projects. Even though my kernels are a little on the fuzzy side, I still really love the way this yarn worked up for this project- I think it gives the garland a really homespun, felted look that feels very festive.

Making the Garland

When making this project, I followed the original pattern to the letter. It’s such a simple process, but it’s so effective (and so quick to work up- I made this whole garland in a single sitting!). The popcorn kernels are made from a simple puff stitch, worked in the super chunky yarn, and the cranberries are just wooden beads, added in between each kernel. I kept going until I ran out of yarn, then fastened off, and before I knew it, I had the perfect popcorn & cranberry garland, ready for Christmas. My finished garland, using a full skein of yarn and 87 cranberries, ended up being about 375cm long.

I did pick up a few little tricks and techniques when making this project, so I thought I’d share those with you here:

• Keep the beads at the front of the work.

When I first started working up my garland, I didn’t pay much attention to how I reinserted the 6.50mm hook into the working loop of yarn after I added each bead. After a little while, I found that this did have an effect on the garland- in some places, the beads were fully visible, while in others they were obscured by the yarn that runs along them. After a little bit of trial and error, I found that making sure the working loop wasn’t twisted when you reinsert the hook and making a conscious effort to keep the beads to the front of the work helped to minimise this problem. While the garland still twists a little, it’s much less noticeable than before!

• When adding the beads, keep the working loop of yarn as taut as possible.

Adding the beads is the fiddliest part of this project, because you have to pull a doubled piece of super chunky yarn through a pretty small hole! Honestly, this was easier than I expected- it took a couple of attempts sometimes, but, as the pattern says, if you split the yarn, you can just remove the hook, bring the yarn back together and try again! One thing that I found that really helped here was to hold the yarn as tightly as I could around the hook as I pulled it through the bead.

• Keep the beads in a bowl beside you.

This is such a small thing, it barely even warrants a bullet point of its own, but it made a big difference to my speed and efficiency! My beads came in a little, grip seal bag, which is great for storage, but not so great for quickly picking one up every time you need to add a ‘cranberry’ to the garland. I transferred my beads to a bowl and put the bowl on a flat surface beside me (a flat surface is important, if you would like to avoid beads rolling all over the place). This meant that I could just grab a bead super easily whenever I needed one, which really sped up the whole process for me.

Final Thoughts

I am so thrilled with how this garland turned out- it gives me such festive, homespun, felty vibes and I just love it! I particularly like how quickly it came together, how easy it was to work up and how effective the pattern was- I do really think it looks like a popcorn and cranberry garland!

I’m really glad that I opted to use the darker red beads- I think it not only makes this garland look more realistic, but it also looks a little more understated and classic. While the yarn I chose is a bit on the ‘fuzzy’ side, and so makes for slightly fuzzy popcorn kernels, I actually also really like that effect- this is, after all, a crocheted garland, and I don’t mind that being evident!

Overall, I loved working on this project almost as much as I love the finished product! It was the perfect, quick and easy festive project and I know I’ll be using it in my Christmas decorating for many years to come. Plus, no popcorn was harmed in the making of this garland, so that’s an extra little win.

If you're interested...

You can find the "Popcorn & Cranberry" Crochet Garland pattern here.

You can check out the Delia Creates website here.

You can find my Popcorn & Cranberry Garland project page on Ravelry here.

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