How To Make A Fabric Christmas Wreath

Decorating the home for Christmas is one of our favourite parts of the season – with carols playing and mince pies to snack on, it really puts everyone into the festive spirit! We love to bring some craft ideas into our festive decor, of course, but there isn’t always time for a lengthy project. Making a festive, fabric wreath is the perfect afternoon craft activity to bring a little handmade love to your home at Christmas and a beautiful way to complement your seasonal trimmings!

What Materials Do I Need For My Christmas Fabric Wreath?

The wreath can be made as simply or elaborately as you wish, it's suitable for makers of all abilities and also a great family project to work on together! It is ideal for using any scrap Christmas fabrics  – our Christmas fabric remnants box is perfect for this project! You can embellish your design with other items, such as seasonal ornaments, jingle bells, ribbons or baubles – browse through our Christmas haberdashery collection for more ideas!

A fabric wreath can be tailored and adapted each year to a festive colour scheme and be hung anywhere in your home. Why not choose some pretty holly fabric and either combine with stars or trees or some of our plain cotton poplins or our plain polycotton fabrics? If you want to make a fab & fun wreath, then you could choose from some of our quirky designs, like our Santa fabric!

Materials required:
30 cm wire wreath frame
Sharp dressmaker’s scissors
3 to 5 different fabrics, measuring about 1.5 meters altogether
Ribbon to tie a bow at the top of your wreath

1: Plan The Design Of Your Christmas Fabric Wreath

To start your wreath, you’ll need a 30 cm wire wreath frame, some wide ribbon, dressmaker’s scissors and between 3 to 5 different types of fabric that measure about 1.5 meters in total. Your fabric could be a combination of simple prints, such as polka dots or stripes, along with festive patterns, such as holly fabric or Santa fabric. You may wish to mix in some calico pieces, plain cottons or plain polycottons to complement your Christmas prints. When selecting your printed fabrics, look for smaller format designs with shorter repeats as you will be cutting the material into 5 cm strips. Large format prints and wider repeats can look confusing, as you won’t see the entire design clearly. If you’re unsure which fabrics to choose, we provide a very affordable fabric sample service to help you with your selection!

We love this pretty combination of prints from retrohousewifegoesgreen.com!

2: Start Your Christmas Wreath

Once you have all your craft materials in place, start by cutting a 40 cm length of wide ribbon and tying the ribbon to the top of the wire frame. Lace the ribbon through a couple of the wire frames to secure nicely and tie in a big bow in the centre of the wreath. Once you add the fabric strips, the bow should sit on top of the pieces without the ends of the ribbon dropping too far down.

3: Prepare Your Christmas Fabric Wreath Strips

Next, prepare all your fabrics – this is a great opportunity to enlist some extra hands to speed up the process. Using some sharp dressmaker’s scissors, cut each material into strips 5-6 cm wide by 12 cm long. It's worth double-checking that the dimensions of the fabric strip work for your frame by tying a sample onto the wreath, before you commit to cutting the rest of your fabric pieces. The fabric strips can be longer or wider if you wish, just ensure that the dimensions are the same so you don’t have some untidy ends poking out too far. You can add in pieces of ribbon, if you feel this complements your fabric too.

4: Organise Your Fabric For Your Christmas Wreath!

As you cut the fabric, keep each pattern together in a neat pile. Once you have finished trimming the material, count the number of pieces in each pattern. We recommend tackling the wreath in quarters so evenly divide each pile of fabrics into four sections. You’ll need to ensure each quarter of the wreath has the same number of fabric colours or prints, so the colour and pattern is balanced across the frame. Organise the piles into the same sequence, to help you as you work around your wreath. If you wish for one fabric to be more dominant in your wreath, just use more strips of this material in each quarter.

5: Tie Your Fabric Strips To Your Christmas Wreath Frame

Now you are ready to tie your fabrics onto the frame and bring your beautiful wreath to life! We recommend following the same sequence across your colours and prints, so start by looping your first fabric under and then back out of one wire and tie in a knot, with the ends poking out to the side horizontally. Keep repeating this step, tying each piece of fabric onto part of the frame and, as you continue to fill the frame, push the strips together and pull the ends of the fabric out towards you to create density, fullness and structure. Follow the same sequence when tying your strips for each section of your wreath, until all four quarters are complete and looking full and fluffy!

6: The Finishing Touches To Your Christmas Fabric Wreath

Snip off any long, untidy ends and ensure the bow at the top of your wreath is sitting neatly over the fabric strips. You may plan to embellish your wreath with extra decorative pieces, such as a few snug baubles or colourful glitter pom poms sat amongst your fabric, jingle bells or additional bows tied with ribbon – the creative options are endless! Explore our Christmas haberdashery department for more ideas!

Now your fabric wreath is complete! The wire frame can either rest on a wall hook, doornail or loop a slimmer piece of ribbon around the frame if you wish to hang your wreath.

Alternative Christmas Wreath Ideas:

If you like the idea of a wreath but fancy trying something a little different to fabric, how about using felt or a mix of colourful pom poms? 

How To Make A Felt Christmas Wreath

To make a felt wreath, you can follow the same steps as the fabric wreath. We love the effect of a two tone green felt wreath, using complementary greens such as our meadow and olive felt, embellished with red and green jingle bells. Using the fabric wreath method, cut the green felt into matching strips, combine the colours for each section and then tie to your wreath frame. Once completed, you can dot jingle bells around your wreath by tying to the wire frame. Finish with a big red ribbon bow at the top for a cheerful, festive wreath to hang in your home!

How To Make A Pom Pom Christmas Wreath

If you like to try a pom pom wreath, you can use our pom pom makers to create your balls – remember to check the scale of the pom pom to your chosen wreath frame so the balls aren’t too wide or small for your wreath. You can create a highly decorative piece with modern neons or a classic Christmas look, with red, green and silver pom poms. Whatever colour scheme you use, a pom pom wreath will bring festive fun to your home!

We hope you enjoy getting crafty this season and please tag us in your projects on our Instagram and Facebook pages – we are always inspired to see how our customers use our products. Also, we’d love to hear about any Christmas craft project ideas you have in the comments below!