This necklace-scarf used to be some woman's suit-coat-sleeve. I got it at the thrift shop for ... fifty cents or a dollar. This serves the purpose as a decorative neck warmer. I love necklaces but I'm not used to scarves, so I had to produce a cross-over piece. From this necessity, the Winter Necklace was born!

It's basically a needle felted flower design that is built on the shapes from the wool coat, lined with the sleeve lining. That is some winter up-cycling!

Step 1: Needs

You need a felt or wool fabric that you can do some needle felting into or onto.
You also need some wool roving, for the needle felting!
And a needle-felting needle. I got mine at Joann's super store, as a "refill", but I just hold the single needle as is.
Traditionally, you use a foam block for the "table" under your needle felting but I just used a wash cloth, folded.
You may like a type of liner for the neck because the wool may be abrasive. If you do it like I did, this won't be a problem. :)
You can hand-sew or machine sew your liner so that it won't unfold. (I machine sewed with a darning foot.)
Also, a needle and thread for the button and flower attachment.

Step 2: Getting Your Shapes

Cut the entire sleeve off the coat.

Take the cuff off, and cut all the way up the seam to make two strips of wool. From each of these strips, you should be able to make your own abstract flower shapes, and lots of them. From this whole sleeve and varied shapes and layers, I didn't use two baby flowers that were left over. So this is perfect!

Scrunch the back of the flower in the center and sew it as you've squished it. That will give you a blooming effect. Just be very careful when you sew it because you don't want to make it too thick and you don't want to let the sewing machine hammer your fingernail like I did haha. Damn that hurt.

Step 3: The Liner

The sleeve liner is now about to become your necklace liner! How cool is that?!

Just cut up vertically, like you did with the sleeve because you want to make it long enough to go around your neck. Once you have the two strips, gather them into a flat "bar" shape and sew them up. You can do something classy, messy or fun, it's your choice! I decided to have fun with it and go free-style, as you will see in the photos.

Once you've sewn up both strips, go ahead and attach them to each other, to make one long strip. This will be the back of your Winter Necklace.

From there, put it around your neck and get an idea for how you would like it to fit.

Make a lazy button-hole by reinforcing all the way around in a circle or rectangle in which your button will come through. Then take some scissors and snip the inside of that lazy buttonhole so that you can use it!

Step 4: Felting Your Flowers

I don't claim to know what I'm doing in terms of needle felting because my education on the subject came from the internet, years ago. Before my husband and I got married, I made him a needle-felted stormtrooper head. I have no idea where it is now...but I DID know where my wool and needles were. ;)

So, all I did, was take some pinches of fiber from each of the two colors that I chose. Black and turquoise. From that point, you can use your imagination on the color combos, the variation, the shapes, where you want to felt it into the wool, etc.

I basically chose to needle felt it into the center of the abstract flower shape and make some stamens here and there just to keep it interesting. Make sure to finish all of your flowers that you will be using, before the next step!

Step 5: Attach Your Shapes!

Now it's time to get a needle and thread out!

Basically, you are hand sewing each flower on in your desired design, pattern, or arrangement. Keep alternating the shapes, sewing folds where you want them to be, overlapping, etc. This will make the natural flow of your necklace scarf.

PLUS, if you made the flowers big enough, like mine, they really do feel like a scarf when you put it on, and it keeps you warm and bundled up. I know this from experience. ;)

Once you've sewn your button in place, finished your edges and have your floral arrangement, you're ready to go. I wore mine to a family brunch and I thought I would be able to wear it all day, but it got warm and I had to take it off, haha. :D