Are you ready for some football (crafts)?

Temperatures hovering in the high 80s. Highways clogged with Baton Rouge-bound RVs. The scent of pumpkin spice lattes filling the air. It can only mean one thing...it's fall in South Louisiana. And fall in South Louisiana means that football is back, and all is right with the world.

And what do we do when the seasons change? We craft.

I've been a New Orleans Saints fan from birth. That's not a hyperbolic statement. Within hours of existing, I had a teddy bear named after the Cajun Cannon and more Saints gear than most of the active players on their roster. While it wasn't always the easiest fandom to be a part of - let's just say I wasn't always using paper grocery bags to cover my school books - it was so worth it to be in that number when they won the Super Bowl.

Lombardi Gras

To prep for last year's season, I decided to put together some yarn wreaths to match the Saints old jerseys and it seemed like a fitting project to share today. While it was a pretty simple craft, it was a little time consuming. Your best bet is to wait for a  Harry Potter weekend marathon and knock it out while you've got ample entertainment. 

I started with a round wreath form, and did a little visual measuring to see where I wanted my retro stripes to go.

This is the closest I've ever gotten to using Geometry in real life.

After I had those sections marked off with Sharpie, I hot glued some black yarn to the back of the form. The only trick is to double back with the yarn so that you cover up the glue. After that, it's all about powering through the tedium of wrapping yarn around foam for a few hours.

When I got to stripes, I used yarn with different textures to help them stand out from the rest of the wreath. The gold yarn was also really thick, so it made this part go a lot quicker. This was vital to the crafting process, because I was pretty deep into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II and I was starting to get hit by all the feels. (I totally wasn't crying, I just had some Floo powder in my eyes.)

When the yarn-wrapping was finally done, I painted some wooden letters and used hot glue to stick them to the wreath. Again, it was all visual measuring. Nothing about this project was very precise. I made the hanger by looping a ridiculous length of the gold yarn around itself and sticking it into the foam with some upholstery tacks. So far, it seems to be working out really well. I made a second one for the sake of symmetry, and I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

Quick word of caution - I don't know how weather-proof these guys are. Mine seem to be living happily in our screened-in porch, but I wouldn't risk putting them on a door that sees a lot of moisture. The only thing more heart-wrenching than watching the Battle of Hogwarts would be watching four hours of yarn work wilt away in the Louisiana rain. 

Now, who dat say they gonna make some wreaths?