Fixing up an “oopsie”

I couldn’t hang my Christmas wreath at Christmas.  Why?  Because it looked like this!  Not a pretty sight at all, I’m sure you will agree.  And the reason why it ended up in this state is because Robin was trying to find something or other in the wardrobe in the spare room where it was safely stored, (or so I thought) , and lent on it.  Then snap, it broke in two places.  I had made this fabric wreath way back in the mists of time when I was quite new to patchwork and quilting, and didn’t even take a note of when it was completed.  But I can certainly remember attending the class at my local shop, Thimbles and Threads. 

It’s broken

To fix it I needed to purchase a new polystyrene wreath.  But of course, after all these years, the wreath I bought wasn’t quite the same, and I wondered if in fact it was a bit fatter.  Yes, it certainly was, and I couldn’t slide the fabric onto the cut edge.  Luckily my design had a tuck sewn into the top of the fabric to make a small ruffle.  Maybe if I unstitch this, I’ll have enough space to slide the wreath fabric on, I reasoned.  So I sat out on the back deck yesterday with my trusty seam ripper in my hand to undo the row of stitching.

Let’s hope this works.

Success – there was just enough room for the fabric sausage to slip right over the polystyrene ring.  A fellow crafter had suggested earlier that I cut a wedge shaped piece out of the ring giving more room to manoeuvre the fabric.  Robin was in charge of finding some suitable glue in his shed to stick the wedge back in place.  That done, we left it overnight to for the glue to set.

Ring with the wedge cut out

Today it was a quick job to hand stitch the seam in place and now my Christmas wreath is repaired and will be ready to be hung up next Christmas.  And to stop the same fate befalling it yet again, it is packed away in a large “see through” plastic bag.   Hopefully that will stop him manhandling my wreath again!  

All fixed now