How to Make a Rag Christmas Garland: Festive Fun for Your Home!
There’s nothing quite like handmade decorations to bring extra warmth and joy to the Christmas season. Today, we’re sharing a fun and creative project that’s perfect for adding a personal touch to your holiday décor— a rag rug Christmas garland! Not only is this project budget-friendly and eco-conscious (hello, upcycled rags!), but it’s also a lovely, relaxing craft to enjoy as the nights draw in. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to transform a strip of hessian and some old fabric scraps into a festive garland featuring bright red berries and shaped rag holly leaves. Ready to get started? Let’s dive in!
What You’ll Need:
- Our Ragged Life Garland Hessian (this two metre long strip is pre-hemmed and prepared for this project and forms the base of your garland)
- A rug hook (for loopy rag rugging the berries)
- A rag rug spring tool (for shaggy rag rugging the holly leaves)
- A cutting gauge (to cut fabric strips quicker for the holly)
- Fabric scissors (we use rag rug scissors as they cut through lots of layers of fabric at once)
- Old rags / clothing (red for the berries and mixed greens for the holly leaves)
- A glue gun / needle and thread (for assembling the garland)
Step 1: Cut Your Fabric Strips
Before we get to the fun part—rag rugging—we need to prepare our fabric. Deconstruct your clothing or rags using the method shown in our video here and cut approx 1.5cm wide strips of red fabric for your berries and long strips of green fabric in a variety of widths for your holly. A variety of widths between 1.5 and 5cm gives more texture in the final garland.
The red fabric strips can be left as is for the loopy (rug hooking) technique, but the green fabric strips should all be cut to approx 7cm in length using a cutting gauge. To see how to use the cutting gauge, watch our video here. Don’t worry if the strips aren’t perfectly uniform—part of the charm of rag rugging is its rustic, homemade feel!
Step 2: Shape the Holly Leaves
To really elevate this garland and complete the illusion of holly and berries, it’s worth the effort to shape some of your short, green fabric strips into holly shapes. I did this with approx half of the fabric strips I put into the garland. Stack 4-8 strips on top of one another (depending on how thick the fabric is) and starting at the end of the strips, slowly carve out small, semicircles from each side of the strips . Finish off each end of the fabric strip with a quarter semicircle to form a curved point. Travel up one long edge of the stack of strips before turning the stack and repeating on the other long edge. Once again, these don’t have to be in any way perfect or realistic as they’ll blend together in the final garland. Holly leaves in nature aren’t identical, and this project is all about embracing those quirky, handmade imperfections. Once you’ve got enough holly leaves cut out, you’re ready for the next step.
Step 3: Loopy Rag Rug the Berries
Now it’s time to create the iconic red berries that make this garland pop. Unravel your strip of garland hessian. The front of the hessian has the more visible stitched lines, so place this facing up. For this project, only rag rug between the two lines stitched along the centre of the hessian. The rest is folded under at the end of the project. The area to fill with fabric looks very narrow, but the rag rugging adds so much volume that it will end up looking double the size.
If you’re a beginner to loopy rag rugging (rug hooking), I suggest you watch our instructional video here. Each berry was loopy rag rugged in a circle and made up of the tails of the fabric strip and 5-7 one centimetre high loops, which formed a berry that was approx 2cm in diameter. As the loopy technique is much shorter than the shaggy technique, the berries get completely hidden by the green holly leaves if you space them too far apart. Rag rug more red berries than you think! I spaced my berries approx 2-3cm apart and made sure that they were spread across the full width and length of the rag ruggable area.
Step 4: Shaggy Rag Rug the Holly Leaves
To attach the holly leaves to your garland, we’ll use the shaggy (proggy) rag rugging technique and a rag rug spring tool. If you’re a beginner then see this technique in action here. This method is great for creating texture, and the holly leaves will look like they’re popping out from the garland. Fill the remaining hessian between your berries with a blend of different greens, making sure to spread them fairly evenly across the full length of the garland. You need to fill the hessian with enough green fabric so that when you fold the garland, no hessian is visible. Position the holly leaves alongside your berry clusters, and soon your garland will start looking like a true Christmas showstopper!
Step 5: Sew or Glue the Garland Together
Once all your berries and holly leaves are securely in place, it’s time to finish off the garland. Fold the fabric-free edges of the hessian strip under, behind the rag rugging, and sew or glue gun the garland together so the rag rugged edges meet. It should form a tube of sorts. If your join is visible, shaggy rag rug a few more pieces of green fabric close to the stitching to help disguise any gaps.
Step 6: Display Your Festive Masterpiece
Now your Christmas rag rug garland is ready to be hung up! Whether you drape it across your mantelpiece, wrap it around your banister, or use it to frame a mirror or window, it’ll bring an instant festive touch to your home.
Personally, I can’t wait to use this garland myself this Christmas and I already have it earmarked to sit above the fire. This project has been great for getting the creative juices flowing and I already have so many ideas for my next rag rug project using our Ragged Life pre-hemmed garland hessian — perhaps some napkin rings or a longer strip to adorn the front door? Happy crafting, and here’s to a wonderfully handmade Christmas!
Elspeth x
p.s. I hope you enjoy making this rag Christmas garland as much as I did. Feel free to share your creations and ideas for other festive projects in the comments or subscribe to our Rag Rug Inspiration Newsletter to have projects sent directly to your inbox 🎄