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How To Make A Christmas Garland with Repurposed Sweater Balls

After denim, my second favourite fabric to upcycle is old sweaters. I made the cutest repurposed sweater balls from my wool scraps. I used the colourful balls to make a Christmas garland and some upcycled Christmas ornaments.

This is my kind of craft, in that it costs almost nothing to make as you are repurposing what you already have. It doesn’t make much mess or require a lot of concentration. Which means I can do it whilst chilling with Netflix.

Most of these repurposed sweater balls were made whilst binge-watching the “Queens Gambit” on Netflix. I loved the series, but what blew me away was all the stunning wallpaper featured.

I loved all that sixties styling, and some of the interiors were fabulous to look at in the home and the various hotels. While everyone else was getting fixated on the chess, I swooned over the wallpaper and interiors.

If you love colour, pattern, and mid-century interiors, I recommend watching this series. Also, if you’re a chess fan, you’ll love it too, but for different reasons.

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What You Need To Make Sweater Balls

The Sweater Scraps

I used old wool sweater scraps I had left over from other repurposed Christmas sweater projects.

Scraps in various colours and patterns will make a more festive Christmas garland. As long as you can cut the waste into a circle of 6 cm in diameter, then it is big enough to make the wool balls.

(Don’t throw away the smaller wool scraps, you can still use them to make a different funky felt garland.)

If using old sweaters for the first time and not scraps, felt them in the washing machine. Put the sweaters on a hot wash with some washing powder in the machine (like with my mountain pillows).

The agitation and hot water will make the fibres tighter in the wool sweater, and they will shrink. Tumble drying the sweaters will also help with the shrinking process. This felting of the wool sweaters will ensure the fabric can be cut and won’t fray, making it great for crafting.

However, only sweaters with a high percentage of pure wool, 70% plus, will shrink and felt. But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean you can’t use them for this craft. Also, some wools, like cashmere, are notoriously hard to felt but still can be used to make sweater balls.

Many sweaters are made on knitting machines and don’t unravel or fray when cut. Test your sweater, and if you can cut it without it fraying or unravelling, you can use it for this craft.

Sweater scraps for making repurposed sweater balls

How to Make Wool Sweater Balls

Step 1: The first thing is to make the circular templates. I made them 6 – 9cm in diameter using a paper compass cutter. You can draw around cups and glasses if you don’t have one of these tools.

paper circle cut outs

2. Place the circle template onto a scrap of sweater wool, draw around it and then cut out the shape.

cutting out  felt circles

3. Draw around the templates and cut out wool circles until you have a collection in various colours and sizes.

You will need three sweater balls in three different sizes and colours for each Christmas ornament. The number of wool balls required for the Christmas garland depends on how long you want. I recommend making 20-30 balls for each garland.

Felted wool rounds

4. These sweater balls are stuffed fabric yoyos. As wool is a stretchy fabric, the sweaters will form a better ball shape than cotton fabric, traditionally used for yoyos.

Take one wool circle and threaded needle. Tie a knot at the end of the thread so it will not pass through the wool. Then stitch a running stitch around the circle’s edge (about 3mm from the edge). Pulling and gathering the fabric as you go.

When you return to the stitch start point, pull the thread so the circle closes to form a bowl shape. Before pulling the thread to close the hole, use your thumb to stuff it with fiberfill.

How to make sweater balls

5. Next, pull the thread tighter to close the hole. Then stitch around the edge of the circle again to close the hole tight, and pull the thread after every stitch. Carry on until the hole is completely closed.

Cut the thread and then roll the sweater ball between your palms to help shape it even more into a round ball.

making repurposed sweater balls

Once the wool circles had been cut, I found these sweater balls surprisingly quick to make.

It took me about 2 minutes to make each ball. Before I knew it, I had a bowl of repurposed sweater balls after a couple of episodes of “The Queens Gambit“.

If you like to do something with your hands while watching TV, this is a perfect craft for that, as it doesn’t require much concentration.

bowl of repurposed sweater balls

The sweater balls look fabulous as they are in a bowl, and perhaps you could leave them like that as decoration, especially if you soaked the fiberfill in essential oils before stuffing the balls. Then, they would make a lovely scented decoration for the table.

I decided to turn my repurposed sweater balls into some Christmas ornaments and a Christmas garland.

How To Make The Sweater Christmas Ornament

You will need three balls of different sizes.

Thread some thin twine onto an upholstery needle. Tie one end to a small craft bell. Then, thread the twine through the smallest ball. Then, the middle ball finishes with the largest ball. Next, tie the twine into a hanging loop.

making sweater ornament
upcycled sweater ornament

These sweater ball Christmas ornaments were so simple and fun to make. I loved playing around with the different combinations of ball colours.

sweater Christmas ornaments

How To Make A Christmas Garland

This is made in a similar way to the ornament above. Thread an upholstery needle with twine.

Tie a craft bell to one end of the twine. Next, thread the twine through the top of a repurposed sweater ball at the gathered end of the ball.

Then, thread the next ball onto the twine, leaving a 4 to 5-cm gap between each ball. My garland was about 20 balls long, and I finished with another craft bell.

Suppose you find the balls slipping around on similarly the twine before and after threading the balls. This will stop them from sliding along the twine and all bunching together at one end.

Making a Christmas garland
Making a Christmas garland
upcycled Christmas garlands
repurposed scrap Christmas garland
upcycled sweater Christmas ball decorations

Since making these sweater balls, I have made some gorgeous fabric mushrooms from fabric swatches in a very similar way. Check out these other Christmas sewing ideas.

I love repurposing sweaters into things for my home, such as blankets, fun shaped pillows and even colourful rugs.

I save the smaller scraps from these larger projects for fun decorations and crafts like these sweater balls. In the past, I’ve used the scraps to make felt Christmas trees, Scandi felt baubles, felt roses, and sweater felt tassel decorations.

I have even made a super cute felt succulent garden from the scraps.

If you liked these repurposed sweater scraps Christmas decorations, you might want to check out these denim Christmas decorations made from jeans scraps.

If you want more clever upcycling ideas, check out this comprehensive list of upcycling resources.

You’ll find more wonderful Christmas craft ideas here.

Sweater ball Christmas garland

angelast

Saturday 19th of December 2020

How absolutely wonderful! Such great ideas are an inspiration!

Claire Armstrong

Saturday 19th of December 2020

Thank you so much 😊

Leanna

Tuesday 24th of November 2020

These sweater balls are wonderful I love having something to keep my hands busy watching a movie, and I would add cinnamon oil to them for hanging on an artificial Christmas tree.

Claire Armstrong

Wednesday 25th of November 2020

I love the idea of cinnamon oil, thank you.

kristie

Monday 23rd of November 2020

Your garland is amazing. It is one of my features on the Little Cottage Link Party today!

Claire Armstrong

Wednesday 25th of November 2020

Thank you, that's awesome, I look forward to seeing them.

Rita C at Panoply

Saturday 21st of November 2020

Great sweater crafting - pinned! Saw your feature on Saturday Sparks and had to come visit and show some love. I do love these!

Claire Armstrong

Saturday 21st of November 2020

Thank you, Rita. They are fun to make and quite addictive, you can get a lot of balls out of just a few scraps.

Michelle Leslie

Saturday 21st of November 2020

These little sweater balls are sooooooooooooooooo cute Claire. I can just imagine how special they would be made from a treasured sweater of a lost loved one or even a little sweater that the kids have outgrown. When my kids immigrated to Canada, they left a whole bunch of their old clothes behind, and I've been meaning to donate them, but the Mom in me wants to keep them too. You, know so I can still sniff them when I miss them so terribly much :-) This would be such a beautiful way to repurpose /save some of those clothes. I just call them my cuddles balls :D

Claire Armstrong

Saturday 21st of November 2020

Thank you. They would be lovely made from treasured sweaters and keepsakes that you can use as decoration at a special time of year.