Gettin' my crafty mo-jo back.

What's this? I'm posting again? What's that? Twice this week so far? It's so wonderful!!!

I have mentioned a time or ten that I really enjoy Roots and Wings Co's blog. Like, I'm borderline stalker material here. The craftyness, cuteness, and "why didn't I think of that," just oozes from their blog. It was no surprise when I saw their little tutorial for making this apple garland. Eeeeek! It's so stinkin' cute! It came together really easily and fast. Low cost too! An unintended bonus is that it's sort of a learning tool for my little ones. They are repeatedly counting the apples: all the apples, then all the red ones, the green ones, yellow ones...you get the idea!

I used:

2 sheets each of green, red, and yellow felt

1 sheet brown felt

1 fat quarter each of green, red and yellow fabric (I left mine folded in half lengthwise, how it came from the store, that way it was already doubled up for a two sided garland!)

my sewing machine...we'll call her Bessie

a needle and thread

3 sheets of paper with 4 (each sheet) apples drawn on it

Anjanette did hers slightly different than I did mine, but just do whatever you feel works best!

You can freehand the apple shapes or find one you like online. I used a bit of clipart and just modified the size, copy and pasted it so there was one in each corner of the paper, then printed 3 copies. The next part may SOUND confusing at first, but it really is what makes this so easy. It's all about the layering.

First, lay one sheet of, let's say green, felt down. Next, lay your fat quarter on top of that, followed by the second piece of green felt. Lastly, pin one sheet of paper with your apples on top of all of that. The various layers' edges will hang over, that's fine. I always save scraps that look big enough to do something with later.

Pull out Bessie, or whatever you call your sewing machine. Sew along, tracing the apple shape. Repeat for each apple. Now, the paper should pull off cuz you've essentially made a perforated pop out, lol. Cut out your fabric apples, leaving 1/4 inch (or more or less, your preference) around the edges.

Now, we want to trim out the top layer of felt around the inside to reveal your coordinating fabric! Save the centers of your green apples, you'll cut out the leaf shapes from that! You can do both sides for a double sided garland, or just one if you prefer the one sided variety.

Repeat this with your other two colors.

Cut out long narrow rectangles out of the brown felt. These will be your stems. You want to cut them double as long as you'd like them to look. We're going to loop them and this will be what we string the apples up with (take a closer look at the top picture). Cut out some little leaves from the green felt leftovers. Using a needle and thread, put a few stitches in to attach the stems and leaves! Voila!!! String your apples up on ribbon or like I did, a thinly cut strip of fabric.

My munchkins counting the apples

See RootsandWingsCo for a proper tutorial, ha ha ha.

Hello Fall!!!