Valentine Wreath

"But it's only January!" You say. Yes, I know that St. Valentine's Day is not for another month, but this is a special holiday for me... you see... it's my birthday.

Yep, I was one of the lucky ones born on Valentine's Day. As a result, I get quite giddy at the sight of red, pink and purple decorations in the store front windows, the overpriced Valentine cards, those disgusting yet addictive conversation hearts and of course, flowers, lots and lots of flowers.

Oddly enough, I have very few Valentine decorations in my house. I'll count them now... one, two.... that's it: two decorations. Not good. Totally insufficient for a Valentine-baby born in Loveland, Ohio (that will be my fun fact if I'm ever on Jeopardy).

I saw this pattern for a holiday wreath online days before Christmas and fell in love with it. The Cable Vision Wreath, designed by Hilary Hunt, uses only 2 skeins of Lion Brand Thick & Quick yarn, one wire wreath (easy enough to find at any craft store) and a ribbon. Not bad for some fast decorating. I really like Hilary's green Christmas version, but what I needed was a Valentine one.

I dug through my stash and found 2 skeins of LB's Thick & Quick in the Cranberry colorway. Perfect! What a fun, fast and festive solution to my decorating needs? Thick & Quick is a super bulky weight yarn made of 80% acrylic and 20% wool. It knits up super fast at a gauge of 2-3 stitches to the inch on size 13 (US) needles. It is machine washable, soft, and can take a beating from toddlers (am speaking/writing from experience here). Over the years, I have become quite a fan of this yarn, which has helped me get over my anti-acrylic attitude... or at least lessened it a bit.

It took me only one afternoon of movie-watching/knitting to finish my wreath. The pattern suggests to knit 12 repeats of the cable pattern, but I repeated it only 11 times (was afraid I'd run out of yarn) and it worked out just fine.

I added a wide, pale pink and gauzy ribbon from the craft store to finish the look and hung it on my dining area wall.
Now you all know that I do not possess the gift of great (or even good) photography skills. The picture to the right is without flash on my dinky camera...

And the picture to the left is with flash on my dinky camera.


Oh well, at least I'm up to THREE Valentine decorations now!