Pinned It, Made It, Failed It : How to NOT Make a Yarn Wreath For Fall

[pinit]

I tried to make a yarn wreath.  I was inspired by all the yarn and pool noodles floating around on Pinterest. I can do that, I said to myself.

This is what my yarn wreath looks like today.

It’s frown is mocking me.

Let me save you the time and share with you what went wrong and how I would do things differently next time.  Let’s just call this Pin It and Made It : How to NOT make a yarn wreath.

What You Need:

A Pool Noodle
Yarn
Scissors
Leaves or Flowers
Glue Gun w/ Glue
Patience

Let’s just start with the fact that this wreath is made with a pool noodle.  I understand how this could make one perfect wreath that costs far less then the styrofoam wreath you’ll buy at a craft store.  But let’s also talk about how a pool noodle wants to be straight.  It’s made that way.  When we decide to bend it, we’re actually making it do something it was not created to do.

Let’s keep that in mind.

First Tip : Cut off 15 inches of pool noodle before you start.  I began my pool noodle wreath adventure with a very large wreath.  It’s too big.  Cutting 15 inches off your pool noodle will not only make your wreath a more reasonable size, but it will also allow you to use only one bolt of yarn.  That is cost savings, my friends.

Second Tip : Use a WIDE yarn.  See that little spot of green?  I had the grand idea of using that lovely color that only came in the skinniest yarn available.  That little green area took me 30 minutes.  That is not fun.  I soon calculated how long the entire wreath would take.  Since it was much longer then even the best nap days of my two young boys,  I quickly switched to the brown.  It was a much wider yarn and moved (more) quickly.

Third Tip : When placing your pool noodle together, make sure you use ALOT of duck tape.  After removing 15 inches of the pool noodle, it became very springy.  Remember, the pool noodle is made to be straight.  I thought I had done a great job, but apparently, I had not.

Fourth Tip : Make sure you hide the imperfections with your flowers.  And make sure you don’t have more than one imperfection.

If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll see a little bend in the lower right corner of the circle.  That was where my pool noodle was already starting to show signs of breaking up.  To hide it, I used the leaves to cover it and rounded the bottom half of the wreath.  I had two places of imperfection to cover.  I had to cover the green yarn and the (2nd) connection.

Fifth Tip : Mix it up a bit.  If you have just leaves, it will look like a leaf wreath.  My creation was somewhat of a yarn wreath and leaf wreath had a baby and made this thang.  I was not crazy about it at this point and was looking to get a “R” monogram for our wreath.  I also thought about covering the entire thing with leaves.  But then I was covering up all the yarn I had spent so long wrapping around and around and around.  Oh, the agony.

And then I woke up the next morning to Mr. frowny wreath.

So there you have it.  I pinned it.  I made it.  I failed at it.

I tried to fix it.  It’s not happening.

I am going to attempt this again.  While buying the leaves, I also bought an extra pool noodle and Christmas yarn.  I went into this thing with full confidence.  Little did I know….

What pinterest projects are you looking to try?