Make Your Own Felted Christmas Winter Ornaments and Necklaces

The first step in any good craft project is to gather your supplies. For this project, you will need the following items:

- An old, floral patterned, wool sweater (poinsettias work well for this)
- A washing machine and dryer
- Laundry detergent
- SHARP scissors

You really want to make sure that your sweater is even feltable before you begin. Some sweaters or wool blankets will have a tag on them saying machine washable. If you find one with this tag, pass it over for the next deal. While they still can be felted, it takes quite a bit more effort and time to get them to the right consistency. Also, 100% wool works better than a mixture of fibers.

If you notice a lot of looser fibers on your sweater before you begin the process, you can put your sweater in one of the mesh bags made for lingerie or delicates. This will prevent the inside of your washing machine from becoming a linty mess. It will not prevent all of the fiber from escaping the bag, so make sure to your washer out thoroughly after you are done felting for the day, but it will help a lot.

Wash your sweater in warm/hot water.

Dry it on high.

Take out the sweater, and you should notice a few things. You will find that the sweater has shrunk considerably. This is good. Now you want to look and see if you can still see individual stitching in the sweater. If not, and it will fit your toy poodle, your sweater will be ready to make into ornaments, and designer neck ware. However, if it has not shrunk significantly, and you can still see individual stitches in the sweater, repeat the wash and dry cycles until it has shrunk significantly.

Now take your super sharp scissors and cut out each of the flowers. You can string one, or many of these flowers onto yarn or a necklace blank, and you have an instant Christmas necklace appropriate for the whole winter season and beyond.

For ornaments, freehand cut out shapes like winter coats, Santa Claus hats, and warm mittens about 2" square, and thread yarn through the tops of them for hangers. It is ok if you have a variegated sweater, as that will make your Christmas ornaments more interesting.

Give them as gifts, or use them for your own Christmas tree or holiday decorations, and save a lot of money being beneficial to the environment!