I was recently approached by Turtle Mat to take part in a wreath making activity, they were kind enough to send me the materials for the wreath and a catalog of their products. (Do check out their Christmas collection, I’m eyeing up a boot stand as a possible organisational tool to help reclaim the porch.)
I meant to take the wreath with me to Christmas camp, as I knew wreath making was one of the activities in plan for the week, but being incompetent, I left the bag with it and the fabric offcuts at home.
Yes, fabric offcuts. This is not a greenery wreath that I have in mind, though I may do one of those as well over the next few days as we’re fortunate enough to have both the greenery, and the relative who is a skilled florist just down the road. Today’s effort is all about the recycling, in this case, lots of fabric from our reenactment activities over the past year or so. Which means all the fabric I’ve used has special meaning to me, making the wreath even more cherished.
The construction technique is very simple. Take the wreath frame, and, having chopped your fabric up into suitable lengths (thinner fabric will cope with being thicker, thicker fabric needs to be thin, knotting length is about 10 cms) knot it around the frame. Being me, I designed a pattern to eke out the fabric I had least amount of which was the red wool offcuts, and taking advantage of the massive amounts of the thin stuff used in Big’s 1920s dress.
So here you have the makings of the wreath – wire frame, pile of fabric.
Chop fabric up, tie randomly or in pattern around the frame. It helps at this stage if you can find a volunteer who can tie knots – I found a handy teenager, although the 6 year old can tie knots as well now.
Repeat until frame full.
We only did the outer ring – mainly because I horribly underestimated how long it would take to cut up fabric and tie lots and lots of knots (about an hour and a half for what we did in case you’re wondering) and I’m still pondering what to do on the inner. When I work it out I’ll add in another picture 🙂
So, what do you reckon? I’m actually rather proud of it.
Thanks to Turtlemat for the invitation to get involved!