Repurposed Sweater Garland

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Last year I found this sweater at Goodwill. I thought it would be cute for Christmastime…

…except that I got home and discovered that it not only fit me poorly but also had a big hole in the neck!

I loved the pattern and knew it could be used for something, so naturally it sat in my basement for a year.

Until now… (Cue energetic, dramatic music)

This was a simple one-evening-after-the-kids-were-in-bed project. My favorite kind!

Tutorial

Supplies:

Old Sweater
Paper
Scissors (these are my favorite fabric shears)
Sharpie
Hot Glue Gun & Refill Sticks
Fiber Fill (or similar)
Needle & Thread

To make it easier to work (and less likely I’d accidentally cut through both layers of sweater), I cut slits up the sides and folded the back under. That way it would be like working with a single piece of fabric.

I cut out a little heart from paper – you know, where you fold the paper in half and cut a half-heart along the seam so it’s symmetrical?

Then traced the heart many times on the sweater using a sharpie- sometimes on the Fair Isle pattern, sometimes on the little heart pattern. I found it easier to dab “dots” rather than drag a line, as that may move the fabric as you’re tracing.

Trace 2 hearts for every 1 heart you want on the garland.

Cut them out, just inside the line so you don’t see the sharpie on your heart.

Now hot glue 2 halves together with wrong sides facing inward. Hot glue seems to work well as it also acts kind of like fray check in holding the fibers together at the edges. You could certainly sew the halves together and use fray check on the edges, but I didn’t want to go there.

Leave a little gap and stuff with fiber fill – as much or little as you want.

Repeat for all the hearts.

Now to string them together. Thread a needle with doubled-over thread and knot the end.

Push the needle all the way through from one side of a heart to the other. Keep the thread in the upper half of the heart so it hangs straight on the string. Like this:

Repeat for the rest. I alternated the two patterns, as you can see below.

Done – hang it up and enjoy! I was super fancy and used masking tape to hang mine. (That little house garland is from the Target Dollarspot.)

These would also be super cute as bowl filler – don’t string them and just put them in a little wooden bowl – so fun! Also perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Hope you enjoy! If you try this project, please tag me on social media or send a pic my way – I’d love to see!

Blessings,
Melissa

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