Twisted Felt Garland

The glitter ornaments were hands down my favorite christmas addition this year, and these twisted felt garlands were easily my second favorite, in part because they were so darn easy and quick.

I found the twisted felt tutorial on the Purl Bee and I knew it would be a great project.  There are also way more detailed directions over there, so check it out if you're interested in making these!

Step one is always to let the cat sit on the new project.  Or rather that's what she thinks step one is.  I got 1/2 of a yard of felt in red, green, and white and was able to make a ton of garland.  If you don't want quite so much, I'd recommend 1/8 or 1/4 of a yard.  I also got the really wide felt that's 72".

I folded the felt and squared off the edge, and then refolded it so that it was about a foot tall and cut off one inch strips.  For me that meant I was cutting through eight layers of felt with the rotary cutter.  My edges weren't totally straight or a consistent width, but I was going for quick and easy.  You could easily do this with just a pair of scissors though the rotary cutter made cutting much quicker.

After I had my strips cut out, I lined up two colors and cut 2" vertical lines in the felt.  I spaced them about 1" apart.  Only do 3-5 cuts at a time though.  I flipped the felt through the cuts to get the twist, and it doesn't matter which way it's flipped as along as you do it the same way the whole length of the garland.  Or don't if that's the look you want.

One finished garland.

I made a bunch in red/white, green/white, and red/green. The best part about this is you could pick any colors you wanted to make it work for different holidays.  I'll probably pull out the red/white felt for valentines day and the green/white could be used for saint patrick's day...if that's something you decorate the house for.  Who knows maybe I'll make more after christmas that's just everyday fun colors like pink and purple for the craft room.

To make longer garland, I used a zigzag stitch to sew the edges together.  I used little command hooks to hang these all over the apartment; I love command hooks.  I bought 3 or 4 packages to hang lights and garland and have used them all over.

Our bedroom door.

Laundry room door.  After Steve got home, I had to readjust the height of the hanging downie bit because Steve didn't want to keep running into it.

In place of the halloween decorations, I put up christmas garland.

And again on the stairway half wall.