Burlap Christmas Garland

To go with my burlap Xmas tree skirt, I also made a nice wide burlap garland for my tree.

For this project, you will need a measuring tape, dressmakers pen, scissors, 1 yard cream burlap fabric with both matching cream and contrasting brown thread. For the stenciling, you will need 1 bottle chocolate brown fabric paint, 1 stipple stencil brush, newspaper, masking tape, 1 plastic stencil (mine had three designs) and a plastic container to hold the paint.

Measuring and cutting

The first thing that I did was to measure how wide I wanted for this garland to be. I wanted it to be 4 inches wide so I measured four inches on the burlap from the bottom hem and marked it with a dressmaker's pen. I made a few more marks until I reached the edge then I cut out this strip. I continued on the burlap fabric, making marks of where it was 4 inches wide all the way to the end (about every 12 inches or so) then I cut out the strips until the fabric was all cut up.

Sewing

Next, I took each strip and joined two of them together to make them longer. I pinned the two together with about 1 cm of seam allowance and I sewed them up with matching thread. Now I had three long garlands. I sewed the edges with a zigzag stitch in contrasting chocolate brown thread to make sure that it wouldn't fray or warp.

Stenciling
Once all of the edges were sewn, it was time for the stenciling. I laid newspaper out on my floor and squeezed some paint into the small container. I secured the edges of my stencil to the fabric with masking tape so that it wouldn't move while I was painting.

Dip the stipple brush into the paint, dab off any excess and blot the paint onto the fabric through the stencil. I had a pattern going between my three stencils so I taped them to the fabric, stenciled them with paint then moved the fabric to the left (or, out of the way to dry) before taping and stencilling again.

I continued this pattern with all of the strips of burlap fabric until I was left with this mound of stenciled garland:

So it doesn't get wrinkled, I keep it wrapped up like this:

Estimated time for this project: about 3 hours or a full afternoon. The cutting and sewing takes time, at least an hour to an hour and a half. Then the stenciling takes about that amount of time (another hour and a half). It is fun though!

Notes:

• This can be done with almost any fabric with any color of fabric paint or stencil. I recommend firm fabrics like linen or burlap so that they can keep their shape. 
• The fabric that you use should be a solid color to really make the stencil pop. 

Ideas:

• Why not try this with a snowflake stencil, perhaps red snowflakes on white linen -- or the reverse?