Fabric Mushroom Garland

Learn how to make this adorable fabric mushroom garland. You can also use these handmade mushrooms individually as decorations or even turn them into mushroom ornaments! They are perfect for any mushroom lovers out there!

Buckle up mushroom fans because this will be a longer tutorial, but I am confident you will feel adept at making your own DIY mushrooms when we are done. 🙂 I chose to arrange mine into a fabric mushroom garland this year, but I can always change that up. They are great stand alone decor as well, as you can see below. The handmade mushrooms are super cute, don’t you think?

These little mushrooms were a little challenging to make happen at first. I knew I wanted a mushroom garland for my cottagecore decor for fall this year, I just didn’t now exactly how I wanted to make it. I thought I could make some fabric mushrooms to string on the garland. Last summer, I made some fabric strawberries and they have become a quite popular post, so I figured fabric mushrooms will probably do well too.

I didn’t quite know how to make them, I had some ideas, but I had to play around first to try them out. Not sure if you know this about me, but I am typically not a fan of any kind of hand sewing, so I try to use my sewing machine as much as possible. Hand sewing is the last possible resort for me. Ha!!

Well, the sewing machine route was not quite working out. I did get some made, I just didn’t like how they looked. So, as you can guess, I had to resort to hand sewing. Ugh! It actually was not as bad as I thought it would be, they came along pretty quickly as you will see and I think they turned out well. What do you think?

Watch the quick video

Don’t want to read all the instructions? I have included a video in this post showing you how to make these fabric mushrooms. If you can’t see the video, turn off your ad blocker. Also, if you ever want to slow down the video, just click on the three dots in the lower right hand corner of the video and you can change the playback speed. If you want more detailed instructions, continue reading.

Supplies to make a fabric mushroom garland

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

Fabric scraps or fat quarters like these
Cream colored batting or felt – I used leftover batting as I already had it but felt could work too and would be a lot less expensive!
Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Needle and coordinating thread
Cream color embroidery thread
Embroidery needle
Scissors
Poly-fil
Wood bead garland

I wanted my mushrooms to coordinate with my fall decor, so I used various shades of greens, golds and browns. However, you can make these in any colors! If you want to make them into Christmas mushroom ornaments, use some red and green fabric! That would be so cute! I may have to do that in the future.

Print out the circle templates

The first step is to print out the circle templates onto a piece of card stock. Any light colored card stock will work, just use whatever you have around. When you are printing, make sure you print this template at 100% to make sure the size is correct. Every printer is different so just make sure your settings are not set to ‘fit to page‘ or that the box is not checked letting your printer make changes. After you print the circles, just cut them out with some sharp scissors.

Cut out circles from fabric

The next thing you will do is cut out some circles from fabric and felt, or batting. I will just refer to it as felt for the remainder of this tutorial, as I imagine most people do not have batting laying around. I made different sized mushrooms and it all depends on how big your circles are. There are different sized circles included in the circle templates above. The fabric will be used for the top of the mushroom and the felt for the underside. Whatever size you make the mushrooms, you will want to use a circle that is one inch smaller for the felt for the underside of the mushroom. Trace a circle on fabric and cut it out.

Next trace and cut a circle out of felt. Remember to make that circle one inch smaller than the fabric circle you just cut.

How to make a fabric mushroom

To make the fabric mushroom cap, lay the fabric circle upside down and lay the smaller felt circle on top of it.

Use a coordinating thread to the cream colored felt and thread a needle with a long piece about 15-18 inches. Tie the end with a knot.

The method of sewing that I used for this fabric mushroom is kind of like a blind hem stitch and a gathering stitch combined. Honestly, I may have made up my own way to sew it, not really sure. LOL! It reminds me a bit of needle turn applique, if any of you are familiar with quilting, but as I never did hand quilting, I am not sure on that either. My goal was to have the stitch hidden on the top of the mushroom and this achieved that, so I was happy. If a mushroom happens to get a stitch or two on top, oh well, it’s not the end of the world. It happened to mine! I never said I was an expert in hand sewing so if any of you are, just look away. 😉

Turn over the edge of the fabric circle by about 1/4″ and line it up with the felt.

Grab the two layers in your hand keeping them pinched together.

Run your needle between the fabric and felt and up through the underside of the felt to start your stitch. Stay as close as possible to the edge of the felt.

Sew around the fabric mushroom cap

This was really hard to photograph but I will try to explain it well. Also, there is a video in this post that shows the process, so that may help too. Start sewing the fabric and felt together by going down through the felt and catching only the first layer of fabric sitting right next to the felt. You don’t want to go all the way through both layers of fabric as you will see the stitch on the top of the mushroom if you do that. Come back up through the felt and continue this pattern using a rocking motion with the needle until you come close to the end of the turned fabric. You will see the thread on the felt underside of the mushroom but that is why we used a coordinating thread. It blends in pretty well.

Pull the needle through and the fabric will “gather” along the thread. While still holding the layers together, use your forefinger to turn over the next section of fabric getting it ready to be sewn and repeat the sewing like you just did it.

Continue sewing around the mushroom cap until you have an opening about 1.5 – 2″ long.

Add stuffing to the fabric mushroom

Take a little bit of Poly-fil stuffing and push it down into the mushroom top. You will want it to be plump but don’t over fill the mushroom.

Sew the mushroom cap closed using the same method as before. When you get to the end, tie off the thread with a couple knots. Cut off the remaining thread.

Now you have a finished mushroom top! You can leave it like this if you want, but I decided to dress the mushrooms up even further by adding some mushroom gills underneath.

How to add mushroom gills

To add the mushroom gills, I used some coordinating embroidery thread. I think the hardest part of this whole tutorial was threading the embroidery needle! Ha! You want the thread to be thick enough to show on the underside of the mushroom, but you want the needle small and sharp enough to poke through the batting/felt. The smaller the needle, the smaller the eye. It was a fine balance. Just fyi, the embroidery thread I used had four strands twisted together, not the six like normal. Knot the end of the embroidery thread.

Start in the middle of the underside of the mushroom and poke your needle through. Pull the thread through until you get to the knot. Cut off any excess thread after the knot if needed. Come out to the edge of the mushroom underside and make about a 1/4″ stitch into the felt.

Pull the thread through and return to the center making a small stitch there to anchor the thread at the center again. Now go out the edge again and make another stitch about 1/4″ apart from the previous one. Continue around the whole mushroom underside in this manner.

Make sure to end in the center and knot the thread. Don’t worry about the overlapping threads in the center, those will be covered with the mushroom stem.

How to make a mushroom stem

Cut some squares and rectangles out of the felt. I made mine about 2.5″ square or 3-3.5″ long depending on how big the mushroom top was. The smaller the mushroom, the smaller the stem obviously.

Add some hot glue to the short edge of the felt and start rolling it. I also added a strip of glue in the center as I was rolling and at the very end.

Add some hot glue on the center of the underside of the mushroom. Press an end of the stem into the glue and hold for a few seconds.

The stem should cover all the extra overlapping embroidery thread in the center and it should look like mushroom gills now. 🙂

Now you are done with the fabric mushroom. You can leave them like this to decorate with or keep reading to make them into a mushroom garland or mushroom ornaments.

How to make a mushroom garland

To make these into a garland, I used a wood bead garland that I already had and attached the mushrooms to it. Doing it this way makes them easily removable, so I can use them differently in the future. Cut a short piece of embroidery thread and separate the individual strings.

Using a needle, thread one of the strings on it and run it through the center top of a mushroom.

Tie the string onto the wood bead garland and cut off the ends. These are easily cut off later to disassemble the garland.

Space out the mushrooms evenly for the best look. I had ten mushrooms total, and tied them on about every five beads.

You could use this same concept to make them into mushroom ornaments. Just use a piece of ribbon or twine to hang them from instead. 😉

I will be back after Thanksgiving with some Christmas decor! I am feverishly working on getting all that together and can’t wait to share it with you all! Have a great week!