January 6, 2009
A Basic hoop for a wreath base
Winter is an ideal time of year to try this as the wood will be dormant, but if you are starting to see buds aready the sap is beginning to flow so you’ll have wait till next season!
Basic Hoop (easy peasy this one, as long as you’re patient and remember that you have to ‘pursuade’ the withies to bend which means feeling for the give with your hands/fingers as you flex each one carefully).
Firstly, find some nice, long, thin flexible withies (shoots/branches). You could try Willow, wild Clematis, Hop bine, Hazel, thin Chestnut, Dogwood or any good long flexible garden prunings you might have access to. Whatever you choose should be approx. pencil thickness and about 3′ long or thereabouts. Here, I’m using Hazel rods. Take off all the leaves and side shoots. Use only straight pieces and avoid any that have obvious thick side shoots as that’s a point of weakness where the withy make snap under pressure.
Now. Work all along your withy, gently bending it between your fingers and thumbs – not so hard that it cracks, but enough to feel it ‘give’. Carefully bend it into a ‘U’ shape like this:
The next bit takes a little care. Put the base of the ‘U’ shape against your midriff and bend the two ends in gently until you can overlap them, just like a knot:
Now working slowly, gently ease the ends round and in to the hoop so that they’re twisting round each other. Do not bend them or they may snap or kink and ruin your hoop. Take your time to get the feel of the wood and you’ll get the hang of it as you go. When you finally run out of rod, the hoop should look like this:
You could leave it like this, but I’m going to add in another rod for more body:
As before, you ease the rod into place. When you run out of rod, or the end will no longer stay in place when bent round, trim off the excess pieces with a sloping cut (using secatuers or a good sharp knife) and generally tidy it all up to look like this:
You may add as many withies as you require to get the thickness of hoop and effect you want. You now have a good strong base to weave, wire, tie or glue seasonal decorations onto. They have a lot of other uses too, if you make a lot in decreasing sizes you can tie them in tiers with ribbon and decorate them. Hung horizontally, you could attach small shallow tins to hold tea lights and make a rustic chandelier. Whatever you decide to do though, take care to do it safely and remember to keep wood, foliage and flame well apart.
