I love the look of felted wool appliques and decorations. Especially around the holidays, they lend a soft and buttery texture to the room.
I was inspired to make these felted wool Christmas trees when I was wandering around the craft store looking for something I never found. What I did find was a sheet of 12×12 wool felt for about $4. Of course I had a coupon (the real reason I got a smart phone!) so I paid less. I wanted to get the most out of the square so I made a super simple triangle tree shape that utilized the fabric with minimal waste. The red yarn is left over from the Holiday Yarn Wreath with Jingle Bell Flowers and the cream color is Homespun left over from a simple crocheted scarf I made my mom a few years ago.
The needle felting tool is very sharp and shouldn’t be used by kids but the scattering phase is 100% family friendly so pick up a sheet for each family member and dig out your scrap bin! The cute little trees can be hung as ornaments, appliques onto fabric gift bags or attached to a card with removable tape so they can be saved for next year. I made a few small ones that I string together on a garland and left a few bigger because I thought they showed off the yarn decoration better.
Supplies:
- 12×12 sheet of green wool felt (not acrylic felt! you need the thick wool stuff, Michael’s carries it with the wool roving and felt purses back by the yarn)
- Scraps of fancy yarn and/or wool felt pieces
- Needle Felting Mat
- Needle Felting Tool
- Ruler
- Chalk
- Sharp scissors
- Knitting needle
- Loop of wire
- Bakers twine
Instructions:
- Lay out your felt, both sides should be more or less the same but pick one to be the front
- Scatter your yarn scraps over the felt, you can work in layers or just toss everything down at once, these are the decorations and ‘ornaments’ on your trees so make sure you let some green show though
- Using the needle felting tool start punching the layers together, start off slowly so you don’t pull off more than you push in
- Work in sections until everything is stuck together
- Flip the felt over to the back, draw lines 3 inches apart across in one direction to divide the felt into four 3 inch sections
- Go across the other way and mark 1 inch intervals across the bottom and top of one section
- Turn the ruler to a diagonal and start marking your triangles by drawing a line from the far left corner up the the first one inch mark and back down to the next one inch mark. Keep going with your zig-zag across the whole piece
- Cut out your trees, I did some small (one triangle) and some big ones (4 triangles)
- After you cut them apart you might have to do a little more felting
- Use the knitting needle to poke a hole through the felt
- Use the loop of wire to pull the string through each tree, either to make a hanging loop or to string on a garland