How to Make Christmas Wreaths & Garlands: 11 Christmas Wreath Ideas to Stitch and Sew

By Mandy Shaw

Give your holiday season a personal touch with beautiful handmade Christmas decorations from the author of Celebrate with a Stitch.
 
This collection of Christmas wreath and garland projects makes the festive period even more special. Celebrated author and pattern designer Mandy Shaw shares her favorite Christmas sewing projects and shows us how to make beautiful Christmas decorations to bedeck our home at this special time of year. The projects feature Mandy’s favorite seasonal motifs, including snowmen, reindeer, holly, doves, and candy canes, along with Mandy’s super simple techniques for making eleven different garlands, wreaths, and Christmas cones.
 
All the motifs and wreaths can be mixed and matched to make endless seasonal variations for a totally unique Christmas project. These projects make the perfect presents for friends and family—or treat yourself and make one to decorate your own home this Christmas!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Dec 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781446373255

Mandy Shaw

Mandy Shaw runs Dandelion Designs, a craft design and kit company. Her work has featured on BBC2’s Leisure Hour and she has written for Popular Patchwork and Fabrications magazines. Shaw also appeared on Kirstie Allsopp’s Homemade Home (Channel 4). She is also the author of Quilt Yourself Gorgeous. She lives in East Sussex.

Book preview

Introduction

Christmas is a perfect time of year to nurture the ‘maker’ in us all, and as we decorate our homes with our handmade creations, it can trigger the excitement and memories of past festivities. Yet, with so much to do in the build up to Christmas, we often concentrate our efforts on just decorating the Christmas tree.

In my home, we always welcome our guests and family with a glorious front door wreath made from holly, ivy, evergreens, fir cones and clementines, tied off with large ribbon bows. But then I got to thinking: What about all those other doors in the house – don’t they deserve a little dash of colour and festive cheer? And surely we can’t leave our windows and shelves bare?

So, I have the perfect solution for those of you with big Christmas decorating dreams but little time to fulfill them. I have developed some quick and easy techniques for making bespoke garlands and wreaths. There are six basic projects to make and more than a dozen Christmas characters and motifs to decorate them with. But here’s the clever part: you can decorate the projects as you choose, in a colour scheme to coordinate each room or space in your home.

I have provided 11 ‘recipes’ to get you started, but each wreath and garland is your own personal blank canvas to embellish as you wish. You’ll find step-by-step instructions for making the decorations in the section called Making the Projects. You’ll need very little in the way of specialized tools and equipment, although I am a great fan of freezer paper for transferring templates to fabric, so do invest in a roll. It is available from specialized craft shops and quilt stores. For speedy results, I used a sewing machine, and I found that a glue gun, available from craft and hardware stores, came in useful for assembly.

Best of all, each year you can ring the changes, creating new designs or adding to the garlands and wreaths you have already made, especially if they are getting a little scruffy. However you choose to mix and match my designs, you will be making your own Christmas memories.

Recipe 1

CHRISTMAS WISHES ON THE WING

Decorated with doves embroidered with festive wishes, this traditionally styled shaggy wreath hangs on my living room door. I used a lovely red linen/cotton mix fabric for the wreath and a white wool felt for the doves, but it would look equally lovely were you to make a flock of red felt cardinals on a white wreath. The birds make great Christmas tree decorations and also look sweet hanging along a ribbon garland.

You will need

One shaggy wreath

Five doves

Five holly sprigs

ASSEMBLY

You can either glue or sew the decorations onto the shaggy wreath. Whichever

Reviews for How to Make Christmas Wreaths & Garlands

[AC Morgavi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A lovely little book of ideas for presents at Christmas. THe templates could be used for several other things than those described in the book. Gifts like bunting, trees decorations etc. So, rich of joyful ideas.