The making of Skylas first birthday flower garland

Ive been buisy making a flower garland for the lovely Abby (who blogs at My Love Is ) She is creating a beautiful bedroom for her adorable bubby Skyla and ordered some flowers to go on her daughters bed head. I cant wait to see the room it when its finished!

Abby mentioned what a shame it was that we are far appart as she would have loved to pop in to see how it was coming along and I agreed. What would be the next best thing? A 'The making of' post of course!

 First I divided my kilo of  organic merino wool into 100gram pieces (I started with the weighing scale out on the lawn on a nice sunny day....then little mitch 'accidently let out out the chooks! It got a little trickier with feathered friends about so we headed inside!)

Each piece is platted as this makes it easier to handle.

Next each colour is dyed. I tried out using 'greener shades' dye (an eco friendly dye) for the purple and I was very impressed. I will definately get more colours of this in the future.

I rinse them and pat them dry. After that every chair in my house becomes re-purposed as a drying rack:)

This pic is of them almost dry (although I re dyed the pink and yellow as they werent quite the shade I wanted)

Next part is wet felting. The rovings are layered in different directions which makes a nice strong felt

I like making felt on the side of my sink as the sink ridges seem to help it come together nicely. Oh and so I can look out my kitchen window at birdies who come to nibble on seeds we sprinkled for them:)

I make the string by wet felting a long thin chunk of rovings. It involves a lot of rolling to get it firm and well shaped! Here are some of the flowers and leaves cut out ready to make their way to the garland.

And here is the finished piece, ready to be sent of to brighten Skylas room!