Vivid Color Ornaments

    Made these ornaments from three sweaters that I loved so much I wore them to tatters. I felted them and gave them a new life as ornaments which I must say came out awfully cute.

    The hanging cords are made from embroidery floss. Take a length of floss (all six plies) about a yard long, fold it in half and knot the ends. Put a crochet hook in the looped end, and holding it taut, roll the crochet hook with the flat of your hand along the length of your thigh (you’ll be sitting on the couch watching tv while you do this).

    Keep rolling and twisting until is nice and tight, and beginning to try to kink up on itself. Don’t let it! Keeping it taut, grip the middle of the cord lightly in your front teeth (or have somebody help you by holding it in their fingers), and bring the two ends together. Take the crochet hook out of the loop, and still holding the cord taut, loosen the looped end slightly and let the cord curl itself from that end up to the knotted end. Woo hoo!

    You can get a little tool to make this much easier from sewing and crafts catalogs – it looks like an old-fashioned manual egg beater, but with a hook instead of the beaters. If you like to make a lot of cord, it’s a handy doodad.

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