Craft Tutorial: Embroidery Hoop Wreath

I was originally going to make one wreath using a big embroidery hoop, but using my existing over-the-door wreath hanger, it would have blocked the peephole. Over the weekend I found two smaller embroidery hoops at the thrift store for 25 cents each (or maybe even less) and thought instead I’d make two wreaths to position around the peephole. There’s two of everything around here anyways, right?

How To Make Embroidery Hoop Wreaths

Materials:

• Embroidery Hoops
• Fabrics for the yoyos (or rosettes or pom poms…is there an official name for these?). I chose red and green fabrics in my stash…some are vintage, some are modern, one I picked up in Hawaii during our honeymoon and I threw in a scrap of a vintage sheet I found last week…only one or two fabrics are actually holiday ones!
• Fabrics for the embroidery hoops (I used heavier fabrics)
• More heavy fabric for hanging strap, or ribbon/trim.
• Needle and Thread
• Washable fabric pen
• Various round-shaped objects for tracing various-sized circles (or a compass…I would have used mine but I think I left it in the 5th grade).
• Button cover kit, or regular buttons
• Fabric scissors
• Not pictured: Embroidery floss, embroidery needle, and sewing machine (optional)

Directions:

Trace and cut out circles in different sizes

Make yoyos out of the circles (the red with white flowers is the Hawaiian fabric…I just omitted the sea turtles). Am I the only crafter on the planet who has never made these yoyos? I remember my mom made a boatload of them, not knowing what she’d make, and then ended up giving them away when she and my dad moved. Therefore, I’ve only watched her make them but never made them myself until now. So here’s a quickie tutorial…I’m definitely not a yoyo aficionado so I’m sure you can find better instructions out there. From left to right:

 

1) Gather along the edges with your needle and thread 2) pulling along the way 3) until you’ve gone around a full circle and 4) flatten into a yoyo, pull the starting end out about an inch and cut off the other end about the same length, and knot together tightly.

Then make covered buttons (or use regular buttons. But I heart covered buttons. I’ll find any excuse to use them).

Cut out heavy fabrics about 2 inches or so bigger than your embroidery hoop. Insert into the embroidery hoops. Don’t trim yet because you may need to reposition it (in the pic below I tucked the excess fabric underneath). Position the yoyos and buttons on your embroidery hoops until you like how it looks (and take a picture to which to refer back!). Also, write out the holiday word you’d like to use on a piece of paper and position that as well.

Sew buttons onto yoyos and yoyos onto the embroidery hoop fabric. I ended up just free-handing the word with my washable fabric pen and embroidered over it. Make sure the fabric in the embroidery hoops are taught, and trim off excess fabric.

Then use some ribbon to figure out how you want the embroidery hoops to hang and what length you need.

Of course, you can always finish it with ribbon or other trim, but I wanted to use the same ticking fabric to make a strap. Cut out a 3-inch wide strip and fold the long sides to meet in the middle then fold down the middle again and press. Topstitch both edges. It’s just like how I made the strap on my patchwork pocket tote bag.

 

Thread the strap through the space under the embroidery hoop screws

And using pins, do one final check on the length you’d like to use. I ended up going shorter than with the ribbon.

I simply knotted the strap to the embroidery hoop like an upside down necktie. I trimmed the ends with pinking shears.

In a world with no peep holes, this is what it would look like.

With the peephole showing.

Do you see two familiar piggies peeking out? I have so little of this fabric that I cringe when I cut it!