By Lia
Before I met Erin, I never thought much about wreaths. But she’s so good about changing them out seasonally, that when I recently saw the plain green wreaths in Michael’s my mind immediately went to fall. Don’t get me wrong, I’m soaking up every last day of summer, but I am determined to be on top of my fall and winter decorating game this year!
Rather than hang this wreath on my door, though (there’s not really a place) I thought I might hang it up as a place to spruce up the inside.
I would love to tell you how long this takes to make, but it took me quite few times to hit upon the final idea I finally ran with. If I had to guess, I would say it took about four hours. Here’s what you’ll need:
- One plain medium size wreath
- Three skeins of Wool-Ease Thick and Quick Yarn – in chocolate, pumpkin and off-white
- One piece of felt, I chose a dark, dark white (almost wheat color)
- Chocolate brown embossing thread
- One large, blunt needle
- A box of small, straight sewing pins
- One button
- Dab of glue
Step 1: The first step is to tightly wind the the yarn around the wreath. As you can see, I chose the brown as my main color, but feel free to reverse the order and choose another if you like! Use a straight pin to hold the end in place (and make sure you place it in the back where no one can see) and wind in large chunks. I varied the size of the chunks and then used rings of mostly orange (but a few white) to break them up. Do this until you’ve got your whole wreath covered. Each time you start and end a chunk, you can use a straight pin to secure.
Step 2: Next, take six strands of your three colors, cut to about three feet in length, and make a thick braid. My trick was to hold the end with my feet and braid toward myself so I could keep the width of the braid consistent. Knot the braid at both ends tightly – you can hide them in the back of the wreath later. You’ll see in mine that I actually let the back of the braid hang down the back of the wreath to give it a little extra dimension!
Step 3: Secure the braid around the top of the wreath using straight pins. I like to first thread the pin through a few strands of yarn and then push it into the wreath. That way it doesn’t come loose. You can hide the knots by leaving just a little extra and then hiding it in the back.
Step 4: Now your leaves. First, cut out a small leaf from your felt. I just free-handed these, but you can find a template by Googling. Then, take just two strands of embossing thread (when you cut it from the skein there will be six) and weave your needle in and out around the edge to create a border. The best part about this is that you don’t have to be super neat if you don’t want to be! In fact, I think it’s a bit cuter if you’re just a little bit messy.
Step 5: Weave a straight pin through the back of your felt – it should be thick enough that you can do this without the pin appearing in the front. It will hang a bit sideways, which is fine! Once you push it into the wreath, you won’t be able to tell at all. I made a flower out of five leaves, layered lightly over one another.
Step 6: To hide the center of your flower, which will just look a little bare, use a dab of glue to secure a button right in the center. You may need to put something on top of the button to make sure it stays on (nothing too heavy or you could dent your wreath). A small hardcover book should do.
Here’s the finished piece one last time!
And that’s it! I’ll be honest, I haven’t found the just-perfect home for this in my house yet because the living room was in a bit of disarray yesterday (both the fiance and I had quite a few projects going together at once) but it should be clean today and I promise to post its home! I’m thinking it will look super-cute above the bookshelf…so stay tuned on if my hunch is right!
