Monday, October 17, 2011

How to Make a Halloween Ghost Wreath



So I hadn't actually intended to make a wreath; I set out to simply needle felt a ghost. After I had made the needle-felted acorns, I thought that it might be fun to make something specifically for Halloween.


I had some black and white alpaca roving (the same kind as the brown that I used here). 


I started with the white, and felted it into a ghost shape. This is part way through the process:


Then I took three small bits of black roving to felt the eyes and mouth right onto the white part.


Once I was finished, I took a small piece of silver ribbon and sewed it through the back of the ghost near the top, so I could hang it.


It was at that point that inspiration struck (as I was trying to think where exactly I was going to hang this small ghost ornament). I remembered that I had a wreath form that I had gotten ages ago, which was languishing in the back of a drawer in my craft room. And as I was wondering what yarn to use, I remembered this skein of black mohair leftover from a(n unfinished) knitting project. It seemed perfectly Halloween-ish as its texture is rather cobwebby. I also grabbed some sparkly silver pipe cleaners.


I wound the yarn around and around the wreath. I was quite generous with the yarn, and went over the whole thing twice, and I still had probably half the skein left (the wreath form is an 8" one).


When I was done wrapping the yarn around, I partially wove the end in, tied the ghost on, and finished weaving in the end.


Then I started at the top, and wrapped the silver pipe cleaner around, attaching each new one to the previous one at the back. I used 6 pipe cleaners for this. There was just enough of the last pipe cleaner left when I had made my way back up to the top to make a little hoop for hanging:


And there it is! A cute little ghost wreath for Halloween.


I think this would be a fun project to do with kids, too. If you were worried about them needle-felting (depending on their age), the ghost could be cut from regular felt, or you could make those kleenex-ghosts to hang from the middle.


Are you making anything for Halloween?

6 comments:

  1. Wow Katherine, again such a detailed and inspiring post today!

    Thank you so much, I wanted to make a yarn wreath for a long time but always hesitated. Now I definitely gonna give it a try!

    Have a lovely day,
    and warm greetings from Holland,
    xxx Sas

    ReplyDelete
  2. Super cute felted ghostie! :-) Between job and family I don't have time to do as many things as I would like. I was planning to make another penny rug, for Halloween, but I started up on Christmas crafting instead. There is always next year!

    ReplyDelete
  3. How great! I do not know how to felt but my MIL does :) Maybe I'll suggest this project to her.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi :) Your wreath is so cute. Love that little ghost!

    Loulou @ Loulou Downtown

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a cute idea. I have been trying to stop by and leave you a thank you for visiting me but blogger has not been letting me saying I didn't have access to your blog. Today I do so thanks for stopping by. You aaked where my antique booth was. It is in the small town of Greenwood just outside KC. The name of he shop is As Time Goes By. Hope you get to visit KC as I know you will have a fun time.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by my blog and to let me know what you think. I love hearing from you!