12 Days of Christmas Decorating: Day Eleven

Don't toss those wool sweaters you mistakenly washed.

So many things you can make, like  a woolen holiday wreath.
Or head to the thrift store for inexpensive options.

To shrink a sweater to reuse the resulting felt,

wash and dry it repeatedly on hot until the weave is tight.

After cutting through the side and sleeve seams

I was left with fairly big flat pieces of fabric.

You can use scissors but I used a straight edge 

and rotary cutter to cut approx. 1" strips.

With scissors, I then cut approximately 1" squares.

Don't worry at all about perfection as

messier pieces actually make a prettier wreath.

Next, thread a large needle for your elves

leaving a long tail on the end for later.

Let them take a go at stringing the pieces together

until the stack is about 6-8 inches long.

Once their strand is done, as tightly as possible,

tie the two ends together to form a circle about 4" wide.

After that, add any embellishment you want.

I used silver cord for hanging and

added a mini red glass ornament to the bottom.

I didn't even use one panel of the sweater

for all six ornaments we made.

Next, I am going to try making a larger wreath

from much larger cut-out squares.

We area almost done with my series

"12 Days of Christmas Decorating."

Check back tomorrow for the final installment 

and to see how beautiful our tree looks.