Rag Rug Wreaths – a great beginner project…
Rag rug wreaths are an absolutely brilliant first project for rag rug beginners. They’re easy to make, quick to complete and don’t use all that much fabric (especially when compared to a full on rug). In particular, rag rug wreaths are great for practising the traditional shaggy technique of rag rugging, which is the easiest and most mindful rag rug technique to start out with. However, they are also a lovely, small canvas on which to get creative if you want to develop your design skills.
Rag Rug Wreaths make a wonderful beginner rag rug project.
We’ve made plenty of different rag rug wreaths over the years, and the best news is that you can too! To make an upcycled rag wreath for yourself, all you need is one of our Ragged Life Rag Rug Wreath Kits or, if you already have the tools, you can buy a Rag Rug Hessian Pack here 🙂 Equally, join us for one of our Rag Rug Wreath workshops in the lead up to Christmas, or make a wreath any time of the year at one of our Full Day Rag Rug Workshops. We can’t wait to see what you make!
Rag Rug Wreath Inspiration:
To get your creative juices flowing, below are just a few of the rag rug wreaths that the Ragged Life team, and former Ragged Life students have made. We hope you find the variety inspiring 🙂 We think there’s a rag rug wreath to suit everyone’s taste!
Christmas Rag Rug Wreath:
When I was first playing around with the idea of making a rag rug wreath, the design that immediately sprung to mind was a traditional Christmas wreath. Red poinsettia flowers and green holly / foliage evoke Christmas cheer, so I decided to make my first rag rug wreath with five blousy poinsettia flowers surrounded by a mix of green “foliage”.
This isn’t the “original” rag rug wreath, but our traditional rag rug wreath design hasn’t changed much since that first wreath.
The best thing is, no two Christmas wreaths will ever turn out the same, as the fabric used in rag rugging is old clothing and offcuts you may never come across again. This means that each wreath is a one-off. To read some of our design tips for making a rag rug Christmas wreath, check out our How to Make a Rag Rug Wreath Blog Post.
Spring Rag Rug Wreath:
After playing around with Christmas wreaths for a few months, my next rag rug wreath was Spring-inspired. This time, the wreath was divided into eight sections (or “flowers”) with small amounts of “foliage” in between. I used a pastel colour scheme with mostly plain fabrics for crisp definition. I liked the design of this rag rug wreath so much that it even made an appearance in my first book “Rag Rugs, Pillows & More”.
My Easter rag rug wreath design.
Alternative Rag Rug Wreaths:
Since those first two original designs, the Ragged Life team and I have played around with a whole bunch of different rag rug wreath designs, and below are just a few of those we’ve made…
This spring wreath is our latest creation (as of June 2019), made using the loopy, shaggy and short shaggy techniques of rag rugging. We particularly love how blousy the big white flowers look when contrasted against the shorter pink and yellow flowers. Voile and chiffon creates an almost ethereal look to the wreath.
This spring wreath is our latest creation.
Here you can see a bit more of the detail up close… In particular, the shaping of the shaggy rag rug pieces.
If Spring isn’t really your season, maybe Autumn and spooky halloween are more to your taste… The rag rug wreath below was made using an old children’s halloween costume picked up from a local charity shop for 50p. It had lots of shiny edging and details, including feathers that were incorporated into the final wreath. I think it just goes to show that you should never count out unusual fabrics 🙂
This rag rug wreath was made using an old children’s halloween costume picked up at a charity shop!
The wreath looks even better up close.
As you’ve probably realised by now, texture is one of the key design elements for a successful rag rug wreath. Well, for the wreath below, we wanted to see whether we could make a rustic wreath that showcased the hessian itself. Yes, so meta! What we ended up with was a lovely free-flowing wreath that would look picture perfect on a nice, big barn door.
This wreath is slightly wilder than our normal fair, but was good fun to make.
And here you can see a close up of the rag rug wreath with all its shaped pieces.
Poppy Rag Rug Wreaths:
2018 was the centenary of the end of WW1 and was the perfect excuse to design some gorgeous poppy wreaths. Our first wreath looked a little too similar to our Christmas wreaths because the ratio of centre to petal wasn’t quite right…
This was our first rag rug poppy wreath design.
But, we think we nailed it on our second attempt, where we made the rag rug poppies much more compact and smaller. We also had a lot fun playing around with different fabrics for the different poppies, so this wreath incorporates chiffon, cotton, lining fabric, corduroy, jersey and lace.
We were very pleased with how our next wreath turned out 🙂
Mini & XL Rag Rug Wreaths:
As well as playing around with the various rag rug wreath designs, over the past few years we’ve also varied the size of our wreaths. Below is an example of our mini rag rug wreath and XL wreath… We’ll be sharing plenty more mini wreath designs in the lead up to Christmas for inspiration.
We had a lot of fun making mini rag rug wreaths last year.
This gives you a better idea of the scale!
And this was our first XL rag rug wreath!
We’ll be adding more of our rag rug wreaths to this blog post as we go along, so to be the first to see our latest rag rug wreath creations, join our newsletter here.
Rag Rug Wreaths – Student Hall of Fame:
Since I made my first rag rug wreath back in 2014, I’ve now taught thousands of crafters how to rag rug and many of them have made their own rag rug wreaths. Below is a showcase of the wonderful wreaths made by former students or purchasers of our Ragged Life Wreath Kit.
p.s. If you’ve made a rag rug wreath and would like to send me a photo then please do… With your permission, I’ll add it to the gallery below, so more students can be inspired by your craftiness 🙂 You can catch me on hello@raggedlife.com
Amelia made this lovely Spring wreath from one of our Ragged Life Wreath Kits. It just goes to show that wreaths aren’t just for Christmas!
Christine’s Traditional Christmas wreath looks gorgeous against this white door.
Janet used lovely warm colours for her wreath.
Gina added extra details to her rag rug wreath to make it even more festive. I think you’ll agree, the ribbon looks just great!
Bee decided to make her rag rug wreath into a unique centrepiece!
Cathy’s traditional rag rug Christmas wreath looked great with the gingham school dress material.
Louise is the first student who combined the loopy and shaggy techniques in her wreath.
Joyce’s wreath could be up in the house any time of the year.
I think Victoria’s wreath proves just how great green gingham looks in the background!
I absolutely love the bright pink in the centre of Shamila’s flowers – they lift the blues beautifully.
Deborah’s classic Christmas wreath was made for her sister. She’s got a few more rag rug wreaths to make yet!
Gillian’s Easter rag rug wreath even incorporated cute little chicks.
Carolyn attached a lovely tartan bow onto the bottom of her rag rug wreath to make it even more festive 🙂
Cherry used gingham buttons in the centre of her flowers to make them pop.
I’ve been a silly billy and forgot to make a note of who sent me the photo of this lovely wreath – please do claim it if it was you!
I particularly love the rich colours in June’s one-of-a-kind rag rug wreath.
Tricia made two wreaths but this one was her favourite.
This was Tricia’s second wreath – she added mini baubles for a bit of sparkle.
Julia has her traditional wreath up at Christmas.
Aneeta started this jolly festive wreath in my first ever rag rug workshop at Le Salon Privé in St. Margaret’s in South West London.
Aneeta’s mum, Sunita, made this lovely rag wreath using Christmas fabric she had stored at home. So festive!
Juliet made this lovely festive Christmas wreath and put baubles in the centres of her flowers to make them pop – what a great idea!
Jane made a very traditional wreath out of her fabric odds and ends. I particularly like how the red and gold stands out against the dark greens.
Make a Rag Rug Wreath:
So, I hope you’ll agree that those are some pretty unique and striking rag rug wreaths. If you’d like to make a wreath for yourself then you can buy a Ragged Life Rag Rug Wreath Kit here or, if you already have the tools, buy the hessian, backing board and instructions here 🙂 Or equally, join us for one of our specific Rag Rug Wreath workshops in the lead up to Christmas, or make a wreath any time of the year at one of our Full Day Rag Rug Workshops. We can’t wait to see what you make!
CONNECT WITH US:
Want to be the first to see our latest rag rug projects, why not join our Rag Rug Community on Facebook or join our fortnightly newsletter here.
OR CONNECT WITH US ON SOCIAL MEDIA AT:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raggedlife/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/raggedliferagrugs/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/raggedlife/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/raggedlife
As always, happy rag rugging!
Elspeth x
[…] the full day workshop, you can choose whether to start a rug, cushion, wreath, bouquet or shopping bag. We bring along the hemmed hessian for each project and the price is […]
[…] never ending. Don’t believe me? Check out some of our former students’ rag rug wreaths here and one of our traditional Rag Rug Christmas Wreaths […]
[…] p.s. Aneeta and Sunita have since finished their rag rug wreaths which you can see fully finished here. […]