Wreaths are one of my favorite Christmas ornaments. When I was still in Taiwan, I made Christmas wreath with fresh plants almost every year. With my family house up on the mountain, I had easy access to all the greens I wanted. This year however, I decided to "crochet" myself one in Milan.
I'm very excited to finally have the excuse to try all these crochet-plant patterns that I've been saving on my list. I'm looking for a realistic effect for this project, so I prepared the lace weight yarn in all kinds of greens and I used mostly a 1.75mm hook.
What I love the most about this idea is that I can just decide which pattern I enjoyed the most and had no problem to make another 3, 4 or 5 times to enrich the wreath or which was enough to try just one time and have that one unique finish piece. Because at the end of the day, all the other problems are resolvable with a little flower arrangement thinking ;).
Here, I'm breaking down my wreath to show you all the plants and patterns I have on my tiny forest of ring. The patterns I used for this project are all free! Anybody can find them online with video tutorials and sometime also written pattern on the designers' websites.
Now let's get into it!
1. Wreath base
Ok, I'll admit it. I got mine from Amazon. But just because it was raining non-stop and all the fallen branches I could possibly find outside were wet. And also, it was really cold....
For the record, my original plan was to follow this beautiful tutorial from Tuckshop Flowers and to wrap my own ring base.
2. Fern Leaf
For my fern leaves, I followed the video tutorial of Chinki'z Knitting Knife Crochet Paradise. I am in love with these leaves the first moment I saw them for their super realistic look.
However, I encountered some problems following the tutorial so I made few tries myself to reach the best looking result for me. And here are my notes for whoever is going to make these
beautiful leaves as well.
>> I made 5CHs for the distance between pinnules.
>> In the last pinna or every pinnules, I made 1 extra SL ST to the root of the current pinnule.
>> I added a thin metal wire on the backside of my fern leaf with hot glue.
3. Cotton Flower
These adorable cotton flowers are from Moara Crochet. It is available both as a video tutorial on Roseanna's youtube channel and a written pattern on her blog .
If you're not familiar with Moara Crochet I highly recommend to go and check her works. She has lots of beautiful patterns for all kinds of plants which definitely worth trying!
4. Succulent Echeveria Plant
There are a lot of patterns for the succulent plant out there, but this one from HappyBerry Crochet is my favorite!
This succulent flower is made one-piece, without any assemble works afterward. If you've been looking for patterns for succulent plants, you'd know what I'm talking about. With this tutorial, all the petals are made directly attached to the
main body. Which means no extra yarn ends to take care of, horray!
It is available also in the written form on the Happy Berry website.
5. Holly Leaf
Another pattern I have used from Happy Berry Crochet was the holly leaves.
For this one, I hold 2 strands of my lace weight yarn together and changed into a 2.20 mm hook. I'd encourage you to do the same I think it really helped to reach the more organic effect with different dimensions of the stitches. And just the the fern leaves, I also added the metal wire on the backside of my holly leaves to give them more support.
This one also come with both video tutorials and written pattern. Once you get the hang of it, it would save you a lot of time to just go for the written form for remainders.
6. Pine Cone and Pine Leaves
I had my yarn ready to do 2 pine cones, 1 in this dark brown color as you see in the picture; 1 in a light color.
However, this was one of the piece which I absolutely love the result but couldn't get the courage and energy to start the second one. Especially with the lace weight yarn and 1.75mm hook......
On the other hand, these pine leaves have saved my life. They are so easy, so quick to make and looking so good with a mix of the different shades. The pine leaves are ended up my go-to whenever I feel like part of my wreath is a bit bald!
7. Red Berries
And last but not the least, I am not ashamed to say that I cheated with some real red berries! These drops of red have really put my wreath together and defined the Christmas look for it.
But no, it doesn't have to be berries. Anything that provide a different texture will do the job. Maybe you have some cinnamon sticks or dry lemon slice in the kitchen? Just wrap it and tie them up on your ring.
Once you've gathered all your plants, the rest to do is just arrange them in whatever way you like it and fix them up on your wreath base with yarn or metal wires. It's ok if the back of your wreath looks very messy as long as it looks elegant and relax in the front.
And the last piece of advice I can give here, is to not being obsessed about any certain way your wreath has to look. Remember they are plants, they should be whatever! Just put it up and enjoy your holidays, I'm sure it looks fantastic!
