How to Make a Felt Garland - Ruffled Rainbow Strip Garland

Set out your felt sheets in every color you want. Katie has eight colors and two or more sheets of each, since she was not sure how much she would need. Add a ball of cotton thread, a needle, a rotary cutter, scissors, a self healing mat and a quilting ruler. Check that the needle's eye is big enough for the thread before you start.

Lay one sheet on the mat and line a second one up on top of it. Cutting two at a time halves the cutting work. Smooth them flat with your hands so the edges match. This is not quilting, so the pieces do not have to be exact. A little variation in size will disappear once the garland ruffles up.

Lay the quilting ruler over the felt with the edge on the one inch mark. Hold the ruler down firmly with your flat hand. Open the rotary cutter and roll it along the ruler's edge, away from you, in one steady pass. Slide the ruler over another inch and cut again. Work across the whole sheet until it is all strips.

Turn the ruler crosswise over the strips and cut them every three inches. Keep the strips together so one cut does several at once. Each pair of sheets now turns into a small stack of 1 x 3 inch pieces. Keep going with the rest of your felt. Katie cut 18 sheets, two of each color, and kept spare sheets in case she ran short.

Pull off a long piece of cotton thread, as long as you want the finished garland plus some extra. One long piece means you never have to join two threads in the middle. Thread the needle and tie a good, solid knot at the far end. That knot stops the first felt piece from sliding off. A long thread tangles easily, so lay it out straight.

Pick up a felt piece and pinch it in the middle so the long sides fold toward each other. Push the needle straight through the center of that pinch. Pull the piece down the thread to the knot. The pinch is what gives the garland its ruffled, fluffy look. A flat piece strung through the middle stays flat.

Keep pinching and stringing, grabbing colors at random from the pile. Every few inches, slide the pieces down so they pack tight together. A tight garland looks full and round. This is the long part of the project, so settle in with a show. Katie's tip: it takes time, but every step is easy.

Once the last piece is on, pull the thread as tight as you can so the pieces sit snug. Push the needle back through that last felt piece. Tie a knot, then tie another one or two so it holds. Felt is soft and a single knot can work loose over time, especially on a garland that gets moved around.

Decide how you will hang it. To tie the garland to hooks or a headboard, leave a tail of thread at this end to match the one at the start. If you will drape it or wrap it around a tree, trim the thread right up to the knot with scissors. Either way, fluff the pieces with your fingers to hide the thread.

Lay the garland along a yardstick to see how long it is. Katie's measured 81 inches from 18 sheets of felt. That works out to about 4.5 inches of garland per 9 x 12 sheet. Note your own number, since it changes with felt thickness and how tight you pack. It makes buying felt for the next garland easy.