My Felt Cactus Crush

Sometimes, I am a late adopter. I fought the crochet craze for nearly forty years before giving in and then becoming addicted.

Now it is cacti. In felt. In pots. I love them but that hasn't always been the case. My parents had a beautiful real cactus bed in the 70s when we lived in Australia and I hated it. I didn't see the point. I thought that it was right up there with people who kept reptiles as pets. Or amphibians. I just didn't get it.

Well something had obviously changed because, me being me, I am very quickly becoming obsessed.  And I thought that you might like to become obsessed too so with that in mind, I have designed this little fellow for you.

The great news is that you need very little to make it. Aaaaannnndddd it is super easy!

Gather together-
-green felt. I have used a pure wool green melange because I am obsessed with that too.
-some pom pom trim (great way to use off cuts)
-polyester stuffing
-hot glue gun
-cute pot
-gravel

This has no print out pattern so it will be a lot easier in a way. Make the template by drawing a rectangle about 8 cm x 13 cm and then rounding the top with a cup or something similar.

Cut out 6 pieces from your green felt...

Take two of them and place them together. You don't need to pin them because the felt fibres will grip a bit. Sew around the outside with a half normal seam...

Trim if necessary and repeat for the others. you now have 3 double units which will yield 6 'arms'.
Place the three units on top of each other and line them up well...

Clips work particularly well for this. You do need something this time to stop slipping. Those felt fibres are not THAT good!

Now lengthen the stitch on your machine and sew right up the middle....

Now it is time to get stuffing! Stuff each arm with your polyester stuffing until very full.

Use a pencil or a chopstick to really get the stuffing into the top.

Stuff the other arms too.

It is starting to look like a cactus now.

To be honest, you could leave it at that but I like the idea of flowers on the top. I wanted something different so I thought about pom pom trim pulled apart. This stuff...

Cut the little pom poms off and then hot glue them to the top of the cactus in a ring starting on each seam line....

Keep going until there is a ring....

From the top it looks like this...

Trim and make everything look natural. The next job is to pot the little guy into his new home.

Put it into your chosen container. And then back fill with gravel...

You can lift the cactus a bit as you fill to get the height that you are after.

And that's it! Apparently these cannot be killed by people who traditionally have a bit of bad luck with indoor plants. I am sure that I can do it but I will let you know. If it is a successful relationship, there may be more felt cacti in our future!

Thank you so much for stopping by. See you next time!
Love and hugs
Debbie 
xx