A Finger-knitted Christmas Wreath

I was inspired (not for the first time) by blogger Anne Weil on her site Flax & Twine to try finger-knitting.  I practiced a bit and even taught my young nieces how to do it.  Anne has a wonderful tutorial here and also offers free patterns along with pics of items she has made.  Last year she posted about a finger-knitted wreath she made for her front door.  Actually, in Anne's case, it's two wreaths (12 inches each) because she has double front doors.  I decided I wanted to make one for this Christmas.  I had to purchase a larger styrofoam wreath (16 inch) because I have one regular size front door.  See Anne's wreath post here.

The finger-knitting part was a cinch.  I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn in the same color that Anne used -- cream.  I ended up finger-knitting the yarn in sections which probably worked out better for me because you need to thread very thin wire (24 gauge floral wire) through the knitted yarn in order to give the yarn more body and assist in wrapping around the styrofoam.  I found it easier to work with in smaller sections.  Then when I finished, I had to decide on what color ribbon to use.  I had originally planned to use red ribbon since our front door is a dark green.   However, we have quite a bit of brass on the door and on the lights around it so I ended up going with gold.  I can always switch to red next year.  Since I'm terrible at tying bows, I wasn't able to make nice simple ones as Anne did.  I realized I needed thicker ribbon to get the same look on a larger wreath.  So I made do with what I had and doubled up on the gold for the bow.  I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out.  It's not as smooth as Anne's work but she's a professional.  She gives classes on various types of crafts and is one artsy lady!  Below are my results.

My finished wreath.

Bow close-up.

Full view with brass lights.

My next project is knitting little Christmas tree ornaments for my three nieces.  I'll post here when I've finished at least one of them.  Many thanks to Anne Weil at flax & twine for 'dressing up' our front door this year!