Fall Rag Garland

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I've been getting involved with sewing and crafting again after buying a "NEW" sewing machine this summer. I've made a couple of skirts for each of the girls, am stocking up on LOTS of hot/cold therapy packs & Sinus Pillows to sell at the craft shows and farmer's markets and now I'm sewing up some Rag Garlands for the fall. I finished one on Saturday night and thought I'd share the instructions and a picture of the final result.

Fall is my favorite time of year and I chose 5 fabrics in a range of colors. For years I've really enjoyed the fabrics with a metallic thread or a metallic outline to the shapes on the fabric. Usually I only see those in the fall & Christmas fabric lines so I made sure I used that as my "base". The leaf print with the metallic outline has a "wrong side" and a "right side". For this project that doesn't matter so much though.

**I don't know what's wrong with blogger these days but the formatting has been giving me an issue the last couple of days. Hope it's readable =D)

Supplies needed (makes 1 50-52" garland):

• 1/4 yard of 5 fabrics (tear each strip off the main piece of fabric. Snip about a 1/2 inch apart along one of the selvages & then tear it along the grain. If the fabric is very crooked you may need to toss the first strip as it will be more of a triangular shape instead of one long rectangular shaped strip.)
• 2" strip of upholstery fabric or a 52" (or whatever length you want) length of cording to tie the strips to.
• Scissors

Steps: 

1) Snip 5 fabrics every 1-1 1/2" along the long side of your fabric. Tear it starting at the snip. If it's hard to tear snip it a tiny bit again and then tear it. 

2) Starting in the center of the cording or upholstery fabric (it will be folded in 1/2 so 1" wide). Using an overhand knot I tied each fabric strip (about 1" W by 9" L). I tied them on in the same order but you could also do a random order if preferred. 

3) Continue tying the strips on until your cording is full. You can stuff it as full as you want or tie bells/raffia or ribbon randomly throughout the strips for a different look.

Notes:

1) I used a piece of upholstery fabric that unravels similar to burlap but it's softer and more pliable. I only purchased a 2" length of this fabric and then folded it in 1/2 as I tied on the strips. It was more sturdy and strong I thought. It was regularly $24.99 a yard, 40% off and so 2" was only .82 cents! That is why I used upholstery fabric instead of twine or cording. It was cheaper!

2) I purchased enough fabric to make 2 more garlands today and will be tying a knot at the end of each length of cording/upholstery fabric and then filling in the center with the fabric strips.

I thought they turned out really pretty. =D I hope you have fun making up a garland or two for Fall or Christmas. I think this would be really neat for halloween with black/white and maybe some scattered spiders?

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