Yarn-Wrapped Wood Monogram

When one of my best friends was pregnant with her first baby last fall, she asked me to help decorate his nursery which I obsessed over delved into immediately.  I immediately thought of a gallery wall and the largest piece of the arrangement was a large wooden monogram of his first initial, L, with a section of yarn stripes wrapped on it.

{Supplies for Yarn-Wrapped Wood Monogram}

• large wooden letter (I got mine here in the baltic birch unfinished in Times New Roman, 20″ tall and 3/8″ thick)
• wood stain (I used “Kona”)
• various skeins of yarn
• picture hanger(s)

The letter comes ready to paint or stain so I put one coat of my normal wood stain on it and let it dry.

I then went through my crochet leftover stash and picked out some non-super-babyish colors I thought looked good together.  This is a good way of getting rid of the annoying short leftovers from crochet projects. I wanted her to be able to change the colors if she didn’t like them or if she wanted to update it down the line so I didn’t use any glue and tied them.  At the start of a section, I taped the end down, wrapped until I thought it looked right, scrunched all the rows neatly together, then un-taped the starting end and double knotted the ends together (multiple knots in a color in the pic below are just short pieces tied together).  This way she can just cut and re-tie different yarns as she wants.  Of course you can glue them down to be a little neater and permanent if you wish.

As far as hanging it, since this was not a symmetric letter, I held it up lightly until it hung evenly and tapped in a regular saw-tooth picture hanger in that spot.

I made sure to get it done in time for her baby shower I hosted and hung it on the front door with some ribbon and an upside-down Command hook.   I am later-blogging so unfortunately I don’t have a picture of it in action.

I made her a ton of stuff for his nursery (errr…maybe too much…. sorry Alyssa!) but this was by far my favorite.  It took maybe half an hour (after staining) and is such a cool statement piece which he can have for many many years to come.  There will be one made for our house around Christmas, for a nursery someday, and probably for any other occasion I can think of.  Lord knows I have enough stash yarn for it!

P.S. This is your sneak peek of the painted office which will be up on Wednesday!