Instead of choosing the oldest or youngest child in the class to be Santa Lucia and instead of rotating a Lucia crown with burning candles among the students before we enter the various classrooms, I decided that the nine girls in my class should all be Lucia this year & I'm asking parents to come felt Lucia crowns at my house. The first get-together was last night & look how beautiful they all are! The boys will have stars, cut from wood, painted golden & attached to a long dowel. I'm looking forward to Santa Lucia's Day!
15 comments:
Beautiful!.....:)
Hi Cadi, Sorry, but I must warn you, this is long...)
Those are wonderful! Chloe is so excited to be Lucia this year, keeps asking how much longer, and is very concerned about how she will have a crown. I haven't told her yet, but I planned on making one similar to what you are doing. Of course I have not done very many felting projects yet, so maybe I am being a bit ambitious. Would you like to share any tips?? Is this needle and wet felting? Is there anything besides wool in the base to make it strong enough to hold the candles up?
Thanks so much if you happen to be able to share any advice!
renee :)
Renee -
Do you have a good Santa Lucia story resource? Are you doing more the Swedish tradition or the Italian one? I have songs by the way. I could send you a xerox copy. One very lovely song was written for our school by a grades teacher. Very lovely. E-mail me at chocolatelilies [at] gmail [dot] com if you are interested in receiving them.
Anyhoo. On to your questions. I'm thinking I will take some pictures as everyone makes these next time, so that it will be easier to see what I'm talking about.
We took a long piece of floral wire, 22 calibre to be specific. Basically the crown part needs to be about 12" and then have the ties attached to the ends. The wire piece you are starting off with is much longer, though, about 45" because every two inches you are going to bend "up" a 3" loop which becomes the candle & you are also going to have about a 1" "loop" at each end in addition to the 2" space to attach the ties. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but basically the wire frame with the candles is all one piece. Make lil' loops at the ends that then will allow for easy attachment of the ties.
Then start wrapping the wire base you created. Start with the candle flame, then wrap the candles down to the base. Make the ties and attach them before wrapping the base in green. That way you can wrap over them a bit, creating a neat look. Then wrap the base with green. For the leaves we used what a local fiber diva calls pre-felt. Take a garbage bag & lay out the wool in thin layers. Spray the whole thing with water. Roll it up. Stick it into a pantyhose & throw in the dryer. 15 minutes later - Voila! - A piece of thin, whispy prefelt. Cut the leaves from the prefelt and needle-felt them into shape as needed. Attach them to the green wrapped base. Since the candles were white, we felt (no pun intended... haha) that there needed to be a tad of color, thus everyone added red holly berries by simply rolling little pieces of wool into balls & then attaching them with a felting needle.
The ties are made from braided wool yarn by the way.
I think that's all.
I will take more pictures at the next get-together in two weeks.
Hope that helps.
Bright blessings to you!
P.S. I just realized that calling it a 3" loop is misleading. It's actually a 6" loop. The candles are 3" tall, so 3" to go up the candle & 3" to go back down.
I would love the story ...can you email me please and I just ADORE this project...I am going to tell me 2nd grade teacher about what you are doing...maybe we can do it too
Oh my goodness Cadi, you are wonderful, thank you so much! Very helpful, I think I am all set to give it a try. I do have one story, I think it was Italian but I wish I had something Swedish. I will have to look and see what I have from last year and maybe I will email you too. But wanted to write now and say Thank you!!!
Narsingh -
I don't have a scanner, so I can't e-mail the story. It is LoOooOoooNG. I could send you a hard copy in the mail.
I was actually asking the question about the story, because I was hoping to find another one, so I can choose which one to present. :-)
Renee -
No problem. :-) Glad I could be helpful.
Blessings,
Cadi
Those are gorgeous! We have a Swedish heritage, but have left Santa Lucia to be a school festival. Sometimes we go into Boston, where there is a large Swedish population, for a huge Lucia festival. Very fun.
beautiful crowns, I bet the girls were glowing.
Well done!
incredibly beautiful!
such lovely handwork!
Awww. Thank you all for the lovely comments. I must craft one, too next time! And I will share step-by-step pictures. Stay tuned! :-)
Do you have any pictures of the boys star wands? how many stars per boy? Is there anything speicifc to the star? thanks
Beautiful! My girls were just asking about St. Lucia crowns the other day.
lisa
Castlequeen -
I do have the "raw" star wands. I'm playing catch up this week. So much going on & feelin' under the weather. I will post details & pictures this weekend.
Blessings,
Cadi
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