Sunday, November 25, 2012

Felt's Up

No, not that kind of felt up.  I mean felt like the fabric.  Dirty birds!

Look what Wonder Mom and I learned to make at Hip Stitch Studio yesterday as part of their Small Business Saturday makeshop!  Not sure where the idea came from, but thanks to whomever thought it up.


They're meant to resemble a string of peppermint candy, but you could make them any color to match the season or holiday.

Here's how we did it...

You need felt (duh), a harpoon-sized needle and either twine (what we used at the shop) or perle cotton (what I used at home).  Beads are optional.


For the class, the felt was cut in 1/2 inch by 9 inch strips.  You can adjust the measurements to suit your project.  Start by layering the desired number of strips one on top of the other.  For class, we used three but I personally liked using just two strips.  When you start trying to shove the harpoon needle through, you'll understand why.  A word to the wise:  do not apply lotion to your hands prior to doing this.  Yep, I'm raising my hand here.


Then you start the 'candy' by rolling the the strips into a tight coil.


When you're done, it'll look something like this...


...just cut the uneven strips at the end so that they're even with the top strip.

Shove a pin down the center through all the layers to hold the coil in place OR start stringing them right away like I did below (needle-nose pliers work well for this..cursing helps too).

Pinning a gob of them means you'll have something to do while sitting through yet another episode of 'Duck Dynasty'.  Ask me how I know.  Here's my stash...


Then you can string to your heart's content.  I had enough strings to turn my dining room chandelier festive.  I briefly contemplated making enough to trim the tree, but popped a Xanax and I'm all better now.


Have fun getting your felt on!

4 comments:

  1. These look brilliant !

    And luckily I know a lot of swear words too....

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  2. There are so many comments I want to make about things in this post but I will stick with:

    Cute! You could put them on a smaller, secondary tree or a wreath.

    My son met the guys from Duck Dynasty before they had the show. Said they are super nice and smart guys but if someone offered him a million dollars to act like a hillbilly he would take 'em up on it, too. Yes, he is mercenary. Yes, he probably gets it from me.

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  3. those are so cute! They do look like little peppermint candies...I dont know that I could do enough for the whole tree either, would turn into another WIP...

    ReplyDelete