Timely wreath

On the eve of curbside pickup for our yuletide tree—the same day we packed up all the Christmas ornaments for another year—I hung this wreath on our door. I'd been working on it for weeks here and there, and it had been a project in my mind long before that. Probably since I bought some Ikea curtains from which I removed the tab tops (to instead make a large casing for an ugly curtain rod). I added these fabric loops to my ever-growing pile of fabric scraps where they awaited their future life as a toy or craft, or, in this case, a wreath.

I made a cardboard frame from scraps rescued from our recycling bin, filled it out with old sweater bits (from other craft projects) and wrapped the entire thing (mummy style) with strips of linen. Just a note about my process: it was haphazard to say the least, and writing about it as if there was a method is misleading. I was just making it all up as I went, grabbing supplies as needed, from the recycling bin or wherever.

Onto this simple white form I wrapped the curtain tabs at varying angles and secured them to the back with pins at first, just to make sure I had enough to go around, and then sloppy stitches. I weaved the longer curtain tie back through and around these, then made little tucks and folds here and there, again, secured with thread.

The leaves were cut from felted sweater sleeves (the torsos of which I had previously made into pillow coverings), the little yellow "stamen" curls from a piece of grosgrain I had kicking around, the round red berries from cardboard circles covered in scraps of red quilting fabric (the only new material). And finally, the ribbon I used to hang it on the door had been wrapping from a Christmas gift.