Tutorial - No-Glue Wreath

All of you who guessed what I was making on Tuesday were right - it was a fabric wrapped wreath with yo-yos!

Best of all it involved no gluing. Everything is attached with pins. It really doesn't get much simpler, and you can have this wreath done in less than half an hour, from the time you rip your fabrics to the time it's hanging on your door.

First you need a wreath. Mine is a 14 inch one I got from Joann's Fabrics using a 40% off coupon. It cost me $3.60.

Next you rip fabric strips to wrap around the wreath, one of which you can see in the photo above. I used some Moda Essential Dots and ripped (3) 3 inch strips the width of the fabric which was exactly enough for my wreath. You will need more if your wreath is bigger.

Now you cut two circles for the yo-yos. Cut the large one 8 inches and the smaller one 6 inches. (In the picture it is cut at 7 inches but that turned out too big so I cut it down to 6 which was much better.

Fold over the raw edge and take large running stitches around the perimeter. Pull the thread so the yo-yo forms and do a few securing stitches to hold it all together.

Next you wrap the fabric strips around the wreath. You can glue it if you want, but I wanted the option of being able to change the fabrics down the road so I just pinned it instead. Start your strip on the back of the wreath and pin. Then just wrap it around and around.

When you need to start a new strip, pin it on top of where the last one ended (try to make it on the back!) and continue.

After no more than 5 minutes, your wreath will be wrapped!

The very last bit where I wrapped it didn't look too pretty so that's where I decided I would put my yo-yos.

Once again, I used pins to attach them. However, my pin heads were yellow and didn't want yellow pin heads on my wreath! So what was I to do? The answer was so simple, you will laugh! I raided my daughter's nail polish collection and found a blue that matched my blue yo-yo. Then it was just a matter of dipping the head of the pin into the nail polish,and putting it in a pincushion to dry for a few minutes!

I wanted to top off the yo-yos with a button so I used an old button that has sentimental meaning to me. This button came from the knitting factory that my great grandparents started when they immigrated to New Zealand almost 100 years ago! To anyone looking at it, it's just a button, but to me it is rather special :)

I then just took my now blue-headed pins and pushed them through the button and the yo-yos, which secured the whole lot all at once to the wreath.

Really, it was that simple! I think the wreath is actually a little plain and not quite fancy enough, but I have plenty of fabric, and plenty of pins, so perhaps some more decorating will come, but for now I'm enjoying it hanging on the front door in its simplicity.