christmas countdown: make a festive garland a la dottie angel

Oh do I love me a garland or what? I think any excuse to make one is a good excuse. Back in September I dug out my crazy ENORMOUS stuffed to the gills bag of thrifted and felted wool sweaters. In my very-good-and-on-it brain I thought I would make felted throws for the holidays but it seems like that may not happen, but a garland is do-able..more than doable really and so I tucked that thought into the back of my mind and let is nest for awhile.

While my brain tumbled about wool sweaters and cookie recipes, it is after-all, THE holiday season, I decided to do a bit more towards the purge and rediscovered my small collection of vintage laces. These, I thought will look lovely stitched to some wool and bunted about. I pictured a lovingly faded stretch of lace with a dollop of wool prettiness spaced from one side to the other. I was thinking scallops and circles and old pearl buttons but then, THEN I saw the goodness that is Dottie Angel and swooned when I saw her lovely crocheted garland. I thought, I cannot crochet or knit but I can hack a sweater to pieces and add a bit of trim and so I did.

Here is my tribute to her lovely garland. You really can do it in a number of ways, here's how I did mine. Thank you Tif for your always inspirational blog, photos and craftiness!

You will need:

*felted wool pieces
*a bit of lace
*scissors
*bias tape
*sewing machine

First I dove into my pond of wool pieces and came up with three I thought would look festive for the season. I rummaged through the lace box and found a nice and perfectly sizes strand of yellow goodness. All I needed was to grab my scissors and get to cutting...I am not a person who measures. This may be why I simply cannot sew clothing but I like to think of it as an open book to crafting. Mix a little here, add a little there, cut a little bit and we're off! So the first thing I did was determine about how long I wanted my garland to be. I planned on making it for the bed so I felt that eight little flags would be a good size. Looking at my wool, I decided to cut three red, three green & two blue pieces. I determined the size of the flags by the size of the lace which I ended up cutting in exactly eight pieces as well.Next I used a zig-zag stitch to attach the lace to each flag.I then lay out my piece of bias tape and played with the pieces to figure out how I wanted them to dance. I pinned them in place and used a small running stitch all across the tape and the wool pieces.Finally I trimmed the threads, hung up my garland, did a little dance and snapped some happy pics! See? Super easy...also, hop on over to scrumdilly-do for a How To kids version. Happy December!