How to Embellish With Felted Wool
Save the scraps of felted wool leftover from larger crafting projects and use them to embellish everything from hats and handbags to skirts and sweaters. Felted wool embellishments add a handmade touch to commercially produced items and they're easy to make. In addition to adding handmade appeal to tired garment and accessories, felted wool embellishments make great patches for garments with rips and holes.
Things You'll Need
- Card stock
- Pencil
- Scissors
- Pins
- Wool felt
- Embroidery needle
- Embroidery floss
- Garment or accessory to embellish
Instructions
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1
Plan a design. Determine what kind of embellishments you want to add to your garment or accessory, how many you want to incorporate into your design and how big they should be. Flowers, geometric shapes, and simplistic animals and objects are good choices.
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2
Draw pattern templates on light card stock. These templates will help you cut out uniform felted wool shapes.
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3
Cut out the templates with a pair of scissors.
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4
Pin the templates to the felted wool and cut around them with scissors.
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5
Arrange the felted wool shapes on the garment or accessory you want to embellish and pin them in place.
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6
Thread and embroidery needle with embroidery floss and tie a knot at the end.
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7
Slide the needle between the felted wool shape and the foundation to which it is pinned and sew through the shape from back to front about 1/8 inch from the shape's edge.
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8
Pull the thread taut and sew back into the shape about 1/8 inch to the left of the place where your needle emerged. Sew through the felted wool and the foundation fabric. Don't pull the stitch tight, instead leave a loop of thread.
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9
Sew through the foundation fabric from back to front, just above the felted embellishment edge and directly over the point you sewed into in the previous step.
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10
Catch the loop of embroidery thread with your needle and pull taut to create your first blanket stitch.
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11
Sew back through the foundation fabric 1/8 inch to the left, just above the edge of the felted wool. Sew from the back of the foundation and the felted wool about 1/8 inch below the embellishment's border.
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12
Catch the stitch running along the edge of the embellishment and repeat the above step until you've stitched around the felted wool embellishment's border.
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13
Sew in blanket stitches around the edges of all the felted wool pieces in the manner described above to finish your embellished garment of accessory.
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Tips & Warnings
The easiest way to create felted wool that's ideal for making embellishments is to felt old wool sweaters in a top-loading washing machine. Place wool sweaters in a pillowcase and add a few pair of jeans (to promote agitation) and a small amount of laundry soap to a washing machine. Set the water temperature to "hot," and run the sweaters through a normal wash cycle. The sweaters are sufficiently felted when the fabric doesn't ravel or fray at the edges when cut.
