One thing that’s always put me off knitting a wreath is having to use one of those polystyrene rings. It all seems such a faff to a) find an emporium that sells such things, b) work out what size you’d need and c) insert it neatly without the fabric either puckering or stretching. Hmm.

Then (THEN!) I discovered short row shaping, which is pretty much as close to magic as you can get with a pair of knitting needles. (Although, spoiler alert, I actually knit flat on circulars - don’t tell anyone!) The idea is simple enough - you just work a few incomplete rows here and there and, as if by magic, the knitting moves in one direction or another… all by itself, no polystyrene required!

Of course, there’s more to it than that - I even ended up drawing round plates to understand how circles work! Then there were all the false starts - too big, not enough bobbles, too small, MORE BOBBLE THAN WREATH. Until I eventually hit on a combination that was bobbley but, y’know, not TOO bobbley.

Then I just added a bow. (Which took as many weeks as there are words in that sentence. Possibly more.)

But now it’s all done and I’m really pleased with it. I wanted a tactile Christmas decoration that someone could make with yarn from their stash. No need to worry about polystyrene rings or bobble placement because all the shaping and all the pops of colour are added as you go. Even the bow is knitted in three easy pieces so you can get that classic shape every. single. time. I like the idea of being able to whip one of these at short (well, relatively short notice) and it working with whatever I happen to have in my small (MASSIVE) stash. And I hope you do too - merry Christmas!