The Cambridge Wreath and the Bethnal Green by Wendy Baker and Belinda Boaden

The Cambridge Wreath and the Bethnal Green

Knitting
December 2013
Bulky (7 wpi) ?
US 10 - 6.0 mm
US 15 - 10.0 mm
5.0 mm (H)
one, to fit wreath form approximately 33cm(13") diameter
English
Discontinued. This digital pattern is no longer available online.

Cambridge Heath Road is very close to where we both live, as is Bethnal Green. So what better names for this year’s festive wreaths than the Cambridge Wreath (the cable-y one) and the Bethnal Green (the stripy one)?

We love our cables as you know, so the Cambridge Wreath is a festive feast of them. All the individual cables are charted and also written out as well, so there’s no excuse for not making one instantly! Rather than give a tension over st st or ‘x sts in cable pattern’ when there are 3 different cables and blackberry / bramble / trinity (delete as per your preference) we just tell you how wide your total panel should be, because let’s face it, you’re not really going to knit a tension swatch for something like this, are you? And anyway, unless you’re WAY out it really won’t matter if you’re a bit too big or too small, this is a really forgiving bit of knitting to wrap around a polystyrene wreath form. As ever (Wendy still loves those bits of plastic that make up her pompom maker), we have added pompoms (in the guise of holly berries here) and also a couple of crocheted leaves that might almost be holly-esq, but you could just do pompoms or tinsel or ribbon if you don’t crochet. Or make up a knitted one. This one’s in chunky yarn on 6mm needles.

Yarn: King Cole Merino Blend Chunky, 100% wool, 67m(72yds) / 50g ball.

4 x 50g balls, shown in Cream, 919.

Oddments of green Chunky yarn for the crocheted leaves.

Oddments of red yarn for the pompoms,.

Tension: Your strip of 174 sts should be approximately 87cm( 34¼“) wide and 20cm (8”) deep if you’re using a similar sized form to ours.

Needles: 6mm needles.

5mm crochet hook for the leaves.

For the more colour-minded of you, we’ve done a stripey wreath, too, The Bethnal Green (because it has green in it. We’ve gone a bit more literal here). This looks a bit like the Demon Wreath-er but is in fact a totally different stitch construction. If you’ve already bought the Demon Wreath-er pattern you could just make a green version of that, to be honest. Perfect for using up odds and ends of yarn, we’ve knitted this one in 3 different super-chunky yarns we had lying around on 10mm needles, but you could just ply up any thickness yarns to get the right sort of fabric. More pompoms, different leaves (again crocheted, from fragments of yarn) but you could knit leaves or even stick real ones on it. Or mistletoe, if you were feeling lucky…

Yarn:
MC: Sirdar Big Softie Super Chunky, 51% Wool / 49% Acrylic, 45m(48yds) / 50g ball.

2 x 50g balls, shown in Dark Green.

CC1: Katia Big Merino, 55% Merino Wool / 45% Acrylic, 80m(86yds) / 100g ball.

1 x 50g ball, shown in Cream, 003.

CC2: King Cole Maxi Lite Super Chunky, 72% Acrylic / 25% Wool / 3% Polyester, 100m(108yds) / 100g ball.

1 x 50g ball, shown in Pale Green, 936.

Oddments of red and cream yarn for the pompoms.

Oddments of Chunky green yarn for the crocheted leaves.

Tension: your strip of 22 sts should be approximately 20cm(8”) wide.

Needles: 10mm needles.

5mm crochet hook for the leaves.