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Based on a video by We Craft Around
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Most Christmas wreaths start with greenery and a spool of floral wire. This one does not. It is a bare wire frame, a ball of chunky yarn and a roll of ribbon, and the candy-cane stripe comes from nothing more than the order you wrap them in.
Beth at We Craft Around makes it from a fourteen inch Dollar Tree frame. The finished wreath is plush, white and red, and it costs a fraction of anything comparable in a shop.
The trick is worth understanding before you start, because once it clicks the whole project is just repetition.
The ribbon is not woven and it is not glued in place along its length. It lies along the frame and gets alternately buried and exposed. Four wraps of yarn go over the top of it, then the ribbon flips back out of the way and four more wraps go onto the bare frame, then the ribbon flips forward again.
The wraps that go over the ribbon pin it down and hide it. The wraps that go on the bare frame become the white sections. Repeat that all the way round and you get evenly spaced red stripes without measuring anything.
One roll of ribbon is five yards and you will not use all of it. A single skein of chunky yarn covers a 14 inch frame with room to spare.
The method has nothing to do with Christmas. Cream yarn with burlap ribbon reads as farmhouse and stays up all winter. Black and orange makes it Halloween. Pastel ribbon on white makes it spring. Same four-and-four rhythm every time, so once you have made one you can make any of them.
More wreaths on the same frame: a fall grapevine wreath, a deco mesh Halloween wreath and a summer front door wreath. Want just the bow? We have making a bow with ribbon on its own.
The same build works with any ribbon and any greenery. If you want the year-round version to start from, see how to make a wreath.
Dried citrus is the easiest natural accent to wire in. How to dry orange slices covers the oven method and stringing them into a garland.
Free, for this project
Make a candy-cane Christmas wreath from a wire frame, chunky yarn and wired ribbon. An easy project: about 45 minutes. Materials cost about $10 to $20. You need 8 things, including 14-inch wire wreath frame, chunky yarn, white and hot glue sticks. The 12 steps start with glue the Ribbon to the Frame, glue the Yarn Down on Top, wrap the Yarn Over the Ribbon, flip the Ribbon Back and Wrap Underneath and bring the Ribbon Back Over and Repeat.
12 steps, about 4 minutes. Tap a picture to jump to that step. Your progress saves automatically.
Tick each step off as you go.
Take the end of the wired ribbon and hot glue it onto the outer ring of the wire wreath frame.
Two and a half inch wired ribbon is the right width. Wired edges matter more than they sound: the ribbon has to hold a shape when the yarn pulls across it, and unwired ribbon collapses into a flat strip that disappears under the wrapping.
Start at the point where the bow will eventually sit. Any untidiness at the join ends up hidden.
Lay the end of the chunky yarn directly over the glued ribbon end and hot glue that down too.
Both tails anchored at the same spot is what lets you wrap them as a pair without either one working loose halfway round.
Chunky yarn is doing structural work here, not just decorative. Thin yarn would need many more passes to hide the wire frame.
Start winding the yarn around the frame, passing it through the middle of the wreath and back over the outside, going over the top of the ribbon each time.
Four wraps. Count them. The whole pattern depends on the count staying the same all the way round.
Keep the tension even but not tight. Chunky yarn squashes, and over-tightened wraps look thin and ropey instead of plush.
Fold the ribbon back on itself so the frame in front of it is bare, then do four more yarn wraps directly onto the frame with the ribbon out of the way.
This is the move that makes the whole thing work. The ribbon is being buried and exposed in an alternating rhythm, and those four hidden wraps become the white gaps between the stripes.
Hold the folded ribbon down with your thumb while you wrap. Let go and it springs back into the section you are covering.
Push the ribbon forward over the yarn you just wrapped, then do another four wraps over the top of it.
That is the full repeat: four over the ribbon, flip, four under, flip back. Keep going and the candy-cane stripe appears on its own.
Lost count? Look at the previous stripe rather than counting from scratch. Matching the spacing by eye is more reliable than recounting.
Continue the four-and-four rhythm around the whole frame until you are back near the start.
This is the long part and there is no shortcut. Take the wreath onto your lap and put something on in the background.
Stop every quarter turn and hold it up at arm's length. Uneven spacing is invisible up close and obvious from across a room.
Near the start point, cut the ribbon, hot glue the end down onto the yarn and trim the excess. Fill any remaining gap with plain yarn and glue that down on the back.
The closing section will be slightly wider than the rest. Leave it. The bow goes exactly there.
Now cut six strips of ribbon for the bow, each 16 to 17 inches. Three of one design and three of a second design gives the bow depth.
Cut ribbon ends at an angle or in a V. Straight cuts fray, angled ones read as deliberate.
Take one strip, bring both ends into the middle to form a loop about nine inches across, and hot glue the two ends down where they overlap.
You end up with a loop and a short tail. Do the same to all six strips.
Make all six loops the same size. This is the single thing that separates a bow that looks made from one that looks bought.
Pick up each loop by its glued centre and pinch it. Collect all six in your hand, alternating the two ribbon designs as you go.
Squeeze the middle tight while you gather them. The pinch is what makes it fan out into a bow rather than sit as a flat stack.
Fan the loops around like the spokes of a wheel rather than stacking them flat. It should look messy in your hand at this stage.
Wrap a pipe cleaner around the pinched middle of the bow, pull it tight and twist. Leave the ends long, because they are what fixes the bow to the wreath. Set it aside.
Then make the hanger: loop a length of chunky yarn around the wrapped section at the top of the wreath and hot glue it down at the back.
Do the hanger before the bow goes on. Working around a finished bow means flattening it.
Hold the bow where you want it, over the wider closing section, and push the pipe cleaner ends through the yarn to the back of the wreath.
Twist them together tightly behind and snip off the excess.
Sit the bow slightly off-centre, up toward one shoulder of the wreath. Dead centre looks stiff.
Work around the bow opening out each loop with your fingers and pulling them into different planes so it fills out.
Then trim the tails to the length you want, cutting each at an angle. Hang it and adjust anything that sits flat.
Fluff it once more after hanging. A bow arranged flat on a table settles differently once it is upright on a door.
Keep going
How to Make a Halloween Wreath
How to Make a Christmas Wreath
E6000
E6000 Craft Adhesive, Clear (3.7 oz)
The industrial-strength craft glue that bonds glass, wood, ceramic, metal, fabric, and concrete. The one adhesive most craft projects reach for.
OLFA
OLFA 18" x 24" Self-Healing Cutting Mat
The pro-standard cutting surface. Gridlines for square cuts, self-healing so blades never leave grooves, and big enough for paper, fabric, and leather.
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Test your knowledge
5 questions covering what you just read. No signup, no score saved, and you can stop after this one.
Question 1 of 5
Why does the ribbon need wired edges?
Quick reference
5 questions, answers, and one-line explanations. Tap to expand.
1.Why does the ribbon need wired edges?
Answer: It holds shape when yarn pulls
Wired edges let the ribbon keep its shape under the yarn tension.
2.What is the wrapping rhythm?
Answer: Four over, four under
Counting four each time is what makes the candy-cane stripe line up.
3.How is the stripe actually created?
Answer: Burying and exposing the ribbon
Folding the ribbon back then forward alternates what shows on the frame.
4.Where does the finished bow go?
Answer: Over the wider closing section
The closing section ends up slightly wider, so the bow hides it.
5.What makes the gathered loops fan into a bow?
Answer: Pinching the middle tightly
Squeezing the centre spreads the loops instead of leaving them stacked.
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