DIY - Yarn Wreath

Encouraged by Kitten Lost her Mittens Halloween yarn wreath tutorial, I decided to give it a try too. Recently I have been busy rearranging my kitchen and I thought a small wreath would look nice. These days all my craft projects have a time limit of one hour (M's nap time) and this small project was just perfect!

Here we go;
1 - Equipment: a ball of fairly thick wool and a straw wreath ( I used one with a diameter of 8 inches/20 cm). You can also use a Styrofoam wreath but I prefer the natural curves of a straw wreath.

2 - Wind the yarn around the wreath. For a good result it is best to wind the wreath at least two times with wool.  After a while all that winding is wonderfully relaxing. You can choose to take the whole ball of wool to wind with or to cut long threads. I preferred the threads, it worked a lot faster. Do not try to do it perfect, it is impossible to wind all the wires perfectly equal.

3 - Halfway through the wreath already looks lovely. You can choose to leave it this way.

4 - To tie off wires you place them in the width of the wreath and wind them with wool. This way you won't have any knots. The last thread you can stab into the wreath with a needle.

5 - And voila, the perfect base for a wreath in less than an hour, ha! Now the fun part starts, decorating the base. Oh, the possibilities are endless.

To decorate my kitchen wreath I have used simple dried materials as sage, hydrangea flowers, ball thistle and garlic. I used button pins to attach the materials. To attach the garlic you just prick with a knife or scissors a small hole in the garlic bulb and push the pin with the head up in it. 
When you use pins instead of glue you can easily change the decorations from time to time.

Thank you Katherine for the inspiration and dear M for sleeping an whole hour peacefully while I was winding. I find this simple craft really energizing and relaxing and I would love to hear from you when you feel the same.

Autumn Decorating

'Less is more' is not the phrase that comes to mind when you enter our living room. What we do hear from people is that it resembles a cozy Hobbit house somehow. Well, I can life with that. And I must admit I often don't know when to stop once I start my seasonal decorations.

But today I've made a lovely Ivy garland in no time simply by sewing fresh Ivy leaves together with my grandma's old sewing machine. (The original idea for a beautiful paper garland comes from the sympathetic Katherine and is shared on her lovely blog.) A fresh, green Ivy garland....just what our Hobbit home needed.

Encouraged by this success I also managed to put a small vase in a hollowed-out pumpkin. And voila. two Autumn decorations made in less than an hour!  Definitely a case of 'less is more' don't you think?

p.s.
The chestnut spiderweb in the first photo is something I still love to make each Autumn. It reminds me of my childhood and it gives me a warm feeling when I enter our house and see it in our window.

p.p.s.
Just saw this inspiring post by Blomsterwerkstatt, these Autumn wreaths are gorgeous!