Fabric wreath- craft project

Something my Norwegian mother passed on to me was the love of making things for the home. It is traditional in Scandinavia to make decorations for the home especially for festive seasons. It’s a great opportunity to share some time with the children getting them involved, creating something unique and special for their home. I also mentioned in my last blog post the benefits of making something by hand as a way of relaxing, which may be a good distraction right now.

This Easter with limited access to new materials I am taking this chance to look at what I can use from fabrics lying around at home. There always seems to be a bag of clothes which are not quite good enough to pass on to charity shops but too good to just throw away!

So here’s a project where you can reuse fabric and make something new, decorative and creative for the home. No sewing skills needed or costly material, just a bit of time.

Fabric & colour- the fun bit.

Hunt out old pillowcases, duvets, worn or torn shirts, outgrown but well-loved PJ’s and cotton nighties, remnants from other sewing projects. Lighter weight cottons work best, heavy denims or thicker fabrics will be tricky for this project. Patterns, stripes, checks, florals, small or large scale, bunch them together and think if you want to go tonal, pastel, bright or a clash, have fun mixing them up, simple plains work well too, a white sheet can look very elegant. You may wish to use the fabric wreath to decorate a child’s bedroom so think of how to co-ordinate with an existing colour scheme.

A word of warning- don’t let the children get too carried away selecting the fabrics, they might raid wardrobes and find their father’s best work shirts or be eyeing up their lovely new bedlinen!!

You will need

Scissors, suitable for fabric cutting

Aprox. 1-2 metres of fabric, depending of the size of your wire hoop

Ruler and something to mark fabric with eg chalk

Sturdy wire or coat hanger or a pre-made wire wreath ring

How to

I have used a pre made wire hoop which can be bought from craft suppliers like Boyes or Hobbycraft for a few pounds or online They are available in various sizes, for this project I have used a 10inch wire wreath ring. Alternatively if you can’t get hold of one of these right now you could use some sturdy wire or a wire coat hanger (undo the hanger and reshape into a ring) as the base, you will only have one hoop but his can be effective and work well too. Make a few and hang together for a gorgeous Easter display. If working with a child it would be advisable for the adult to make the wire hoop as wire can be hard to cut and bend, accidents or injuries are to be avoided at the best of times!

Wire base for the wreath medium 10inch and small 8 inch size

Select your fabrics, my daughter and I went for these for an Easter look.

Fold your fabric in half and mark out strips, 2inches cut lengths, then cut these strips into 6inch lengths (folding the fabric just speeds up the time of cutting)

Fabric strips 2x6 inches ready for making into your wreath, don’t worry about being totally neat as they will be bunched up when knotted

Start knotting your pieces of fabric onto your wire ring, do this by picking your fabric strip up, fold in half long ways and form a loop, hold behind the wire ring, then push the two lose ends through the loop and pull to tighten the knot. Keep going and pushing the knots close together to fill the hoop.

Continue all the way around your wire hoop. Have fun mixing up the fabrics in any way you like and it is easy to take the pieces off and reorder if you are not happy with the first go. If you are working on a single hoop this is where you will stop and finish off your wreath with a longer piece of ribbon or fabric for hanging.

If you have a second ring continue to tie knots on the other ring, mix fabrics and colours as you go. You can see here the yellow stripe cotton is thicker than the others and created a bigger knot, the green fabric is a light weight voile and knots quite small, the spotted fabric is mid weight and works well.

Continue until the hoop filled up.

Finish off your wreath by moving your knots, (they should be fairly tightly packed in) around until you are happy with the arrangement, ends can be trimmed at this stage too. Add a piece of fabric 1.5inches wide by as long as you need to hang on your door or wall.

A pretty and cost effective decoration for your home this Easter, made from upcyling fabrics, giving the children something to keep them busy, be creative and happy. I hope you enjoyed this creative project and found the instructions easy to follow, if you have any questions drop me an email astridcblake@outlook.com I hold creative workshops in my studio find out more here.

Happy Easter, love Astrid x