Make It Yourself: Decorate Your Festival Tent With A DIY Feather garland

The Bookshelf

Looking for a fun project to get you in the festival mood? These feathers are so versatile and make a lovely tent decoration when strung on a garland. Alternatively, bunch them together and add to a plaited length of twine for a bold necklace, or add several to a headdress for an ultra chic look!

You will need

Garden twine
All-purpose glue
Old paintbrush
Bin bag
Various patterned cotton fabrics, A4 size
Pompoms
Large darning needle
Scissors
Wooden and silver beads with large holes to decorate

Step 1

Cut the fabrics into various sized rectangles, the smallest ones need to be 4cm x 11cm and the largest 7cm x 22cm. Make sure you have two rectangles of each size; if you are making a garland of 30 feathers, you will need 60 varying size rectangles. Partner up the rectangles so that you have different fabrics in each pair. For some of the feathers, you could join different pieces of fabric to make rectangles with a patchwork effect.

Step 2

Lay all the paired up rectangles on a flat surface covered with a bin bag. Mix approximately 50ml of all-purpose glue with two tablespoons of water and then paint this mixture onto each of the rectangles. When done, flip them over and paint the reverse. Leave to dry overnight.

Step 3

When dry, take one of the rectangles and cut a feather shape from it. Fold the feather lengthways, down the middle from top to bottom. Along the raw edges of the feather, cut little angled snips making sure you stop 0.5cm from the middle fold. Vary the positions of the snips on each feather, some can have several and some only a few.

Step 4

Shape the feather further by pinching along the spine and pulling into a curve. When you have made all the feathers, start threading them onto the twine using a large darning needle. Push the needle through the quill of each one. As you thread the feathers on, alternate with pompoms and beads. For added sparkle, coat the tips of the feathers in all-purpose glue then sprinkle with fine glitter.

Ros Badger is the founder of the children’s knitwear company “Little Badger”. Before forming her own company she designed and produced knitwear for clothing lines by Marks & Spencer, Flyte Ostell, Copperwheat Blundell, and Georgina von Etzdorf, among others.