Spring Wreath


I wanted to make something to hang on the door after Easter and I have seen lots of yarn wreaths and tutorials for making felt flowers floating around the internet, so I thought I'd give one of those a try. I picked up a foam wreath form from the dollar store and gathered up my felt squares and got to work.

You'll need the following:
a wreath form (I used a foam one, but I've seem these done on straw and wire forms as well)
yarn of your choosing (mine is Vanna's Choice--yeah Vanna White has yarn--in Seaspray Mist)
straight pins
fabric glue
scissors
ribbon for hanging

Start out by tying your yarn to your wreath form. I also pinned it to the foam form so that it wouldn't slip as I wound the yarn around the form.


Just keep winding and pushing it tight to completely cover the wreath. This was by far the most time consuming part of the whole wreath project. Not difficult at all, but it took some time.





Once you've gotten it started, I recommend finishing it while watching TV--it makes the time go by much more quickly--the next thing you know, it'll be done. It will look a little something like the picture below. I noticed that the front side was near perfect and the back side (which is pictured below) was a bit more layered and rustic looking, since I hadn't been paying close attention to getting that side all lined up and straight. If you like things very neat, you may want to keep an eye on the back side of the wreath. :) This smaller wreath form used a little less than half the skein of yarn--so you could easily use some you had lying around the house.



After I finished the wreath, I started making some felt flowers. There are lots of different kinds of felt flower patterns going around these days, but these are the simplest. You start out by cutting a circle out of a piece of felt. My wreath form was on the small side so I started out making circles that were about 4 inches in diameter. It doesn't need to be a perfect circle, actually, the more wonky your circle is, the more character your flower will have. For a smooth looking rose--like a buttercup, make a smooth circle.



If you want more of a petaled rose, make a bumpy circle. Cut into the circle in a spiral as shown and leave a small circle in the middle to cover the bottom of the rose when you are done.



Pick up the start of your spiral and tightly wrap it around itself to create the center of the blossom. When you pick up the spiral of felt, you'll notice that the inside of the cut is straighter than the outside, use that straighter side as the bottom of your flower.



Keep wrapping the felt around the center creating your rose blossom.





When you get to the circle at the end/center of your felt, you may have to cut a little more to make the circle match the size of the bottom of the flower. When you're done wrapping, put some tacky glue (or hot glue) on the bottom of the blossom and cap it off with the circle of felt.



These roses are so simple that they are almost addicting. The first one I made looked exactly like the pictures I had seen, and it took about a minute to make. 




I look forward to trying out weird cutting patterns on all of my leftover scraps of felt to see what kind of flowers they will make. Once you've finished your roses, you can pin them or glue them to your wreath form. I pinned my roses to the wreath in a pattern around the largest rose (which was made from an approximately 5 inch piece of felt).



Once I felt good about my rose design, I decided to add some little felt leaves in the crevices between roses. I free-form cut the leaves out of scraps of green felt and then pinned one end in between the roses so you couldn't see the pin.



After the leaves, all that was left was to find a ribbon to hang it from. I feel like it turned out pretty well for my first try. The variegated yarn looks more spring-grass-like in person than the washed out almost gray color it looks like in the pictures. Next I hope to do one with ivory colored yarn and some of the felt flowers that require a little sewing. :)


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