Valentine Sweater Rosette Wreath

 

This wreath was a conglomeration of a whole bunch of ideas that had been mulling around in my head:)

As you may recall, I was kindly bestowed a huge pile of sweaters, bound for the goodwill - and have been making my way through them- starting with these cowls, which we love!

When I saw this post at Decorating Addiction, I loved it!  I had been wanting to make a few more decorations for Valentines Day, and with so many pink and red sweaters among the pile - it was a perfect fit!  I even had a banged up picture frame just begging to be repurposed. 

So, this project does need a TON of these little rosettes, but luckily - there is ABSOLUTELY NO PRECISION REQUIRED!

Cut a bunch of circles, or ovals, or whatever comes out in the first chop:)

I used regular ribbed, cotton sweaters. 

Then, make them into spirals, leaving a little tab/circle at the center. 

 Starting at the outside end, tuck the pointy end down, and start to twirl toward along the strip of sweater, toward the center.

Once you have twirled your rosette all the way up, put a big dollup of glue on the back, and press the inner tab/circle down over the glue.

And do that, about 100 times:)

I particularly wanted a square wreath, so I used an old picture frame.

And started hot gluing  rosettes tightly along the frame. 

Wow, that was a lot of gluing!  But I LOVE how it turned out:)
It hung on my wall for a couple of days just like this, until I decided what I wanted to put inside!

I took my faux burlap (want to know what it really is?? check out this post!) and used Freezer Paper for the first time to create a stencil!

Make it and Love it has a great post here - all about Freezer Paper, if you are curious.

I lightly painted my xoxo with red acrylic paint...

...peeled off the paper when it was dry...

...traced a heart around the xoxo....

...and cut out a couple of heart pieces.

With right sides together, I sewed around the heart, after putting some ribbon facing in for hanging.  I left a 2" space on the side to turn it right side out.

Then, I loosely stuffed it, and whip stitched the opening closed. 

Now that is a darling wreath!!  XOXO and Happy Valentines Day!