Christmas Rose Wreath

A coworker of mine expressed interest in buying a holiday wreath from me, so I borrowed heavily from the basic instructions of a few different patterns to make this, my Christmas rose wreath!

Materials

• 12 inch foam wreath
• Yarn for wreath (green)
• Yarn for roses (red)
• Yarn for flowers (white)
• Pearl pins
• H hook
• Tapestry needle
• Hot glue gun 

Instructions

1. Make the cover for the wreath.  

Ch 19.  Row 1: Sc 18 across.  Rows 2-122:  Repeat row 1.  Finish off, leaving a very long end.

2. Sew the cover onto the foam wreath.

Use your tapestry needle and the long end to sew row 122 to row 1 as cleanly as you can.  Wrap it around the wreath and sew up the long edge, matching your edges as you go so that it stays even.  (Since all the rows are the same color, this doesn't have to be too exact.)  There are excellent instructions for sewing up a foam wreath cover here.

3. Make the roses.

I made a modified version of #45, Flared Rose, in 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet by Lesley Stanfield.  The original rose uses quite a bit of length and triple crochets, but I wanted smaller roses.

Large roses

Ch 20.  Row 1: Dc in 3rd ch from hook and in each ch across.  Ch 3, turn.  Row 2:  3 dc in next ch and in each dc and in each dc across except last dc, in which you do a hdc instead.  Finish off, leaving a long tail.  Hold one end of rosette and twist the strip upon itself so that you have a rosette.  Using a tapestry needle, sew the rosette so that it stays in the shape that you want.  Flatten if desired so that the rose petals flare out.

Medium roses

Ch 15.  Row 1: Dc in 3rd ch from hook and in each ch across.  Ch 3, turn.  Row 2:  3 dc in next ch and in each dc and in each dc across except last dc, in which you do a hdc instead.  Finish off, leaving a long tail.  Twist and sew into a rosette as large rose.

Small roses

Ch 15.  Dc in 3rd ch from hook and in each ch across.  Finish off, leaving a long tail.  Twist and sew into a rosette as other roses.

4. Make the white flowers.

The white flowers were based off of #48, Tradescantia, in 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet by Lesley Stanfield, except I crocheted them all in white.  I'm not going to reproduce that book's pattern on this blog, but any white flower will do.  (Here are some ideas.)

5. Make the leaves

Ch 10.  Sc in 2nd ch from hook and finish the rest of the row as follows, one stitch per ch unless directed otherwise:  1 hdc, 2 dc, 1 trc, 1 trc, 1 dc, 1 hdc, 1 sc, 1 ss.  Finish off. 

6. Glue the leaves and flowers to the wreath using a hot glue gun.  Other patterns have used pearl pins to attach flowers, but I find that this does not work with the roses, which have to be flared by being held back.

7. Add pearl pins to the centers of the white flowers, or anywhere else on the wreath as you like.  On mine, I added three small white pearl pins to the centers of my white flowers.