Summer Wreath Making

A couple of weeks ago I spent a while crocheting a wreath sleeve for the base of my summer wreath. It is made very simply of stripes of half treble stitches, made to the length where I could roll my polystyrene ring up in it. and then stitched together at the back. I used two completely different yarns for this, the lighter green is a DMC Natura Just Cotton in Bamboo, and the darker green is Sirdar Supersoft Aran in Jolly Green- both of them completely different weights and textures, which I rather like. It's amazing how the yarn sleeve sorts itself around the wreath base, it is slightly bunched up around the central ring but not so much that you'd notice it.

Sunday was a really lovely day, the morning spent pootling around in the garden, gazing in rapture at the Aliums, playing with Ziggy on the patio, and starting to put my wreath together.

I laid out all of the components first to get an idea of the placement, and then very carefully started to push the wire through the polystyrene base to secure the leaves, twisting and flattening the wire at the back so that it couldn't pull back through.

In the late morning we decided to go out comme une famille to do a spot of shopping, and ended up having a picnic lunch at Chailey Common Nature Reserve with the Exmoor Ponies that are allowed to freely roam on the Common.

It was lovely to watch them graze and play. One pony was methodically stripping Oak leaves from one of the trees, working his way around the lower branches and pulling all of the leaves from the branch in one fell swoop. Must have been delicious!

I took a lunchtime project with me and after eating my strawberries and cream popcorn (delish!) and chicken wrap, I cut out some more leaves for my wreath (you can never have too many leaves).

Since then I've spent most of the last week therapeutically putting the rest of my leaves and flowers onto my wreath, pushing through the wire stems and stitching the large flowers to the crochet sleeve. I've lost count of how many leaves I've made and put on but I'm so chuffed with the overall effect.

It really is a very summery wreath- lots of lush green and deep berry shades with fresh splashes of white. I'm particularly pleased with my Poppies, I think they look quite realistic.

I may yet add some more bits to this wreath, as I've been thinking that it looks quite flat in colour with all that light absorbing felt. Maybe some shiny things like beaded sprays or even a slightly blingy bee would lift it slightly? What do you think? To bee or not to bee? (That is the question.)