A little twist on a favorite classic...

I'm not a big wreath person; somehow they always turn out too traditional and, well, boring to me. But I found some wreaths on etsy that just blew me away and I had to try and make one...

I love argyle prints, so I fell in love with it on a wreath, and the fact that the wreath was wrapped with yarn? Sold...

I decided to make a team one as a Christmas gift (eh? eh? great gift idea right here)... And as hard as it looks, it really didn't take me forever like I thought it would.

I actually did this kinda on my own, but later found a good tutorial on it here. I used a 12" styrofoam wreath, and it was really easy to wrap. And just a tip -- leave the yarn on the skein. It's much easier to throw a ball of a yarn through the wreath than trying to pull a really long string through over and over and over...

Then I made the little diamonds. For a 12" wreath, my diamonds were 1.75 inches tall and about 2.58" wide. They lined up almost perfectly. Then I used the black yarn to wrap around one direction, coming up and across my diamond, then wrapped it back the other way to make the argyle pattern.

I used hot glue to tack down all my yarn ends and my felt.

I printed an O and a U off on my computer in Freshman font, then used them to make my letters. I hot glued those onto the crimson and cut it out. I put some plastic mesh (found in the embroidery aisle at the craft store) onto the back of that to give it some structure, then added a second layer of crimson felt so you wouldn't see it. With that all sandwiched together, I just hot glued it to the wreath.

Then I made some felt flowers, following this tutorial again as well as a combination of this one and this one.

I used lots of hot glue on those babies as well, and that's it. Well, I did also include something to hang this with (although my clear over-the-door one fit perfectly, but it's not for me...). I just took nine strands of yarn and braided them together; I wanted it to be thin enough not to detract from the wreath, but I wanted it to be interesting at the same time. I really love it! Fun way to show some team pride...

Free Pattern -- Layered Crochet Flower

It's almost spring, and I am thinking about flowers! This is my own little way of doing crochet flowers. You can do a lot with this flower pattern -- use different colors, add or subtract levels and increase or decrease size. I must confess -- I've never written a pattern before, so feel free to leave me a comment with suggestions or questions. :)

You'll find a pdf of the pattern here. Feel free to use this pattern however you like, just please give me credit if you sell the flowers. Also, please respect my copyright and don't claim this pattern as your own. Thanks for visiting and enjoy your flowers!