Making a Grapevine Wreath

Day 23: It's been donkey's years since I made the grapevine wreath on the left. Seriously, like for thirty years that wreath has hung on my front door except at Christmastime when I replace it with a fake evergreen swag. And almost every year for the last dozen, I've said to myself, "I need to make a new wreath," an idea which invariably got back-burnered until the vines had become too dry to manipulate. Even at the best of times, grapevines are fragile. They snap at the joints if you look at them crosseyed, so making a wreath is an exercise in patience. I usually start with one of the most flexible pieces, preferably one which will form a circle the size I want, overlapping about halfway. Then I add a second one, trying not to force it to bend too much, maybe only crossing the original circle twice for an 18" wide wreath. And that's key: don't try to do a lot of wraps. For subsequent additions of vine, I thread the heavier end through a gap in the first pair until it's about a third of the way through. Then I take it around the pair once (twice if it's behaving), before starting to work on the free (thinner) end. Take the tip of the thin end through the center and, working backwards toward the thick end, gently coerce the wrap to lay close to the original pair. Once you've achieved that without hearing any telltale snaps, take the tip through the center again and repeat the process. Be gentle! And take it slowly. When I am nearly done wrapping the wreath, I will search out a few vines with "curls" for embellishment. Over the years, my old wreath lost all but one of its curls, so I left loads of them on the new one.