Wreaths, wreaths, wreaths.

Took me a while to finish this other wreath project; a Christmas card peg wreath. I had seen it on Pinterest and it looked fairly straight forward. You just need wooden clothes pegs, a wire hanger, pony beads, green paint and ribbon. I went and bought a pack of clothes pegs for next to nothing, had some green acrylic paint which I thought I'd use instead of shelling out for spray paint. Also I only had enough white pony beads to do it, so I was going for more 'mistletoe berries' than 'holly berries'

You can follow the tutorial I used here. I got my wonderful husband to help me paint the pegs one evening, like I said, we used paintbrushes and acrylic paint instead of spraying them so it did take longer. When the pegs were dry I clipped the pegs on the hanger alternating with the beads. The hard part was trying to get the wire into a circle and getting the pegs to all lie flat and the right way round so I could tell if they were evenly spaced. I used tape to stick the wire ends together and then discovered I didn't have a decent piece of red ribbon ( I didn't want to use the gingham again), so I whipped up a little padded bow with left over fabric from the Christmas bunting. As you can see, my circle is a bit wonky, but it does the job... 

As long as we don't get too many cards!

Wreath Number 3

I had to give it a go! Having made my wooly wreath for the front door, I still wanted to have a go at a pillow wreath. I'd never seen one before, but earlier this year I saw one at the Roding Valley Quilters exhibition in Chigwell. It looked simple enough but really impressive. I had some Christmas fabrics left over from the bunting and a few more bits of greens and tartans. 

I didn't have time to get a polystyrene florist ring so I made one out of scrunched up newspaper and tape and then covered it in green. My ring turned out about 7 inches in diameter, quite small as I want to put a pillar candle in the middle as a centre piece for the Christmas table.

•  I cut out a load of 5 inch squares of fabric, I had no idea how many I'd need so I cut 30, this turned out to be just right. 
• I folded and pressed a seam allowance of about 6mm on one side, this saved me loads of fiddling when I'd come to hand stitch the ends. 
• Then I sewed up the two other sides and turned them all the right way round. 
• Next I stuffed them with toy filling and sewed the pressed under edges together by hand. When I had a pile of 30 little pillows it really looked like I had way too many for my little paper ring. 
• Using green yarn I tied the pillows in the centre and then tied them to the wreath. Each time I attached another, I just positioned it so that it covered more of the green paper and looked like they were all going in different directions.  I didn't cover the back because it will be place on a table.
• I trimmed all the loose yarn and placed a pillar candle in the centre and ta-da!

I would much rather make another one of these than the peg wreath. I found it quicker and easier, but maybe that's just because I love sewing.

If you are going to make one, I should say that it probably isn't a good idea to light the candle in the middle as the filling in the pillows is probably highly flammable. I shan't be leaving it unattended if it does get lit this festive season.