done

Thanksgiving is done, the family visits are done, and finally the wreath is done! Hope you all had an enjoyable holiday, as I did with my family. Being on the east coast we are in easy-visit distance of many family members now...yay!

Two hundred "Florist Greening Pins" later...we have a wreath! I was thinking of doing a tutorial for you, but I just didn't have it in me with everything else going on. I did do a brooch tutorial a while back that really is the basis for what I did here.

I started with a 12" straw wreath form that I bought at Michael's. I didn't even take the plastic wrapping off because the wreath started to shed straw bits all over the floor. (Not that I'm a neat-nick, but wool felt dust bunnies rule the roost around here, thank you very much. No need for pokey straw interlopers mucking things up...) I wrapped the whole wreath first with long wide strips I cut from a green felted sweater. It looked a bit like it was bandaged up, but I didn't want any of the straw parts showing from the sides.

I have a giant stash of ribbing pieces leftover from felted wool sweaters. Most rib cuffs I use for my cupcakes, but these were all "rejects" in some way...too narrow, too short, etc. (You could just as easily use felted wool that was flat knit and not ribbing.) I just rolled them up from one end a few times then secured them to the form with a "greening" pin, which is kind of like a cross between a hair pin and a staple! (also purchased at Michael's) Once the beginning of the roll was secured, I kept rolling the rib around and pinned the other end in. Some of the ribbings I snipped (before rolling) so that it would look fringey, others I folded and snipped to make them look loopy! And of course, some I just left as is for the ever-popular sock ball effect.

There were so many options as I went along. I contemplated adding felt balls, jingle bells, and even a big felty bow of some sort. In the end, I just decided I couldn't decide, so I made the whole thing irregularly uniform. (uniformly irregular?) The jury is still out as to whether it will be a hanging wreath or one that becomes the center piece on the dining room table.

(Then again, there is always the option of whipping up some stuffed fish on floral wire to make a "coral reef/wreath"!)

Ok, now back to working on filling the shop for tomorrow's update! It will be the first of several holiday re-stocks before Christmas. So, if you miss out this time, there will be more coming on the next few weeks!