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Clara's Harvest Autumn Wreath
Clara's Harvest Autumn Wreath
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30-day return policy
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Clara's Harvest Autumn Wreath
The Whitaker Harvest Wreath is assembled entirely by hand, one at a time, by Clara Whitaker, 71, and her apprentice Nell Hargrove in a converted dairy shed in Waitsfield, Vermont. Every bloom, ribbon and berry is placed and wired individually — no jig, no production line, no two ever identical. And because of a promise Clara made in 1997, every wreath you buy pays for a second one she gives away free to a family who lost someone this year. More than 4,000 have gone out that way.
Choose Your Wreath (all hand-assembled, no two alike)
Four designs, one pair of hands — and one promise attached to every single order
🌻 The Sunflower Wagon Wheel — Sunflowers & Buffalo Check (Bestseller)
A black iron wagon wheel with a sweep of full-headed sunflowers across one corner, eucalyptus and boxwood trailing out of it, finished with a double bow — buttercup yellow layered over black-and-white buffalo check. The brightest of the four and the first to sell out every year. Clara on why she keeps making it: “It’s the loudest hello I know how to make.” Sunflowers were the first thing she ever wired to a ring, in October 1997, for reasons she’ll tell you further down this page.
🎃 The Thankful Wreath — Ruffled Ribbon & Hand-Lettered Sign
The most labour-intensive of the four: sage burlap, pumpkin print, orange plaid and buffalo check ruffled in layer by layer, loop by loop, all the way around a deep ring — then a hand-lettered wood sign reading Thankful set into the centre, with mini pumpkins and orange berry clusters tucked through. Roughly 140 individual ribbon loops per wreath. The one people buy for the door they open on Thanksgiving.
🍂 The Pumpkin Rose Wagon Wheel — Roses, Pumpkins & Ferns
The same black iron wheel, dressed the other way: burnt-orange roses, small pumpkins, autumn ferns and copper maple leaves, finished with a layered pumpkin-print and plaid bow. Warmer and softer than the sunflower version — the quieter twin. Clara’s own favourite, which she’ll admit only if you ask twice.
🍁 The Maple Harvest Ring — Full Leaf & Pumpkin Circle
The classic circle, and the only one with no ribbon at all. Maple leaves in every shade from butter to rust, wound the whole way round with mini pumpkins, orange berries and eucalyptus. Nothing shouting, nothing to fade in the sun. The most understated of the four, and the one that stays right where it is from September clear through November.
Whichever wreath you choose, the making is identical: same hand-wired construction, same two pairs of hands, same promise. Clara sets the structure; Nell places the final stems. And the same order funds one free wreath either way.
What Makes It Different
Most autumn wreaths sold today are machine-assembled on a jig — identical spacing, hot glue that fails in the first frost, a hollow back where the frame shows through. They look fine from a distance, but they were made for a shop wall, not for a door. A Whitaker wreath is built the way New England makers used to build things: slowly, by one person, to outlast the season it was bought for.
Placed one at a time, by hand — “firm enough to hold, loose enough that the stem breathes”
Built the way it should be:
- Buy one, one is given — every wreath sold funds a second, made in the same shed and left free on the doorstep of a family in mourning. 4,000+ given since 1997. Clara has never taken a wage from it.
- Wired, not glued — every bloom, pumpkin and ribbon loop fixed individually by hand. Slower, but it survives a January ice storm without shedding. “Glue fails in the cold. Wire does not.”
- Weather-honest materials — colour-fast, all-weather florals and ribbon chosen over four seasons of trial specifically because they hold their colour through frost, rain and full afternoon sun. This is a wreath for a real door, not a display shelf.
- Built in the round — no hollow back, no exposed frame, no bare patch where the hanger sits. The side that faces your neighbours is finished like the side that faces the door.
- Never twice the same — no jig, no template, no spacing chart. Two wreaths of the same design leaving the same shed on the same morning are visibly different objects.
- Two pairs of hands — Clara’s structure, Nell’s final composition. This season only, every wreath carries both.
Specifications
| Diameter | 22" (56 cm) — sized for a standard front door |
| Depth | Approx. 5" (13 cm), built in the round |
| Base | Wagon Wheel designs: powder-coated black iron wheel. Thankful & Maple Harvest: reinforced wire ring |
| Construction | Individually hand-wired — no hot glue, no foam, no staples |
| Materials | All-weather colour-fast florals, foliage and berries; mini pumpkins; wired ribbon in burlap, plaid, buffalo check and pumpkin print (Thankful adds a hand-lettered wood sign) |
| Weight | Approx. 2.9 lbs (1.3 kg); wagon wheel designs approx. 4.2 lbs (1.9 kg) |
| Placement | Front door, interior wall, barn door or fireplace; covered outdoor use recommended |
| Origin | Hand-assembled in Waitsfield, Vermont, USA |
| Care | Dust gently with a soft brush; fluff ribbon loops by hand each season. Bring indoors January–August to extend life. No sprays or sealants needed. |
The Story Behind the Shed
In October 1997, Clara Whitaker’s daughter June died three weeks after her nineteenth birthday. For eleven days afterwards Clara did not leave the house. What finally moved her was small and strange: from the kitchen window she noticed that the front door was bare. The flowers people had sent were dead in their cellophane. From the road, the house looked like nobody lived there anymore.
She went outside in her coat, cut what was left of the sunflowers June had planted along the south fence in a crooked line she’d refused to straighten, and wired them into a circle. She hung it on the door because she could not think what else to do with her hands. “I wasn’t decorating anything. I was telling the road that somebody was still in here. That we hadn’t gone.”
The next spring, a woman two towns over lost her son. Clara didn’t know her. She made a wreath, drove it over, left it on the step without knocking, and went home. Twenty-nine autumns later she keeps the names in a hardbound notebook on the shelf above the bench — funeral directors send them, hospice nurses send them, sometimes a neighbour just knocks. More than 4,000 wreaths given away, and the paid ones exist to fund the free ones. “The wreaths pay for the wreaths,” she says, as though that settles it. In the shed, it does.
This October is different. Arthritis has moved into both of Clara’s hands, and there are mornings when she must stop and wait for the stiffness to ease. “I can still make them. But I can feel that I am making the last ones. The hands know before you do.” Her apprentice Nell Hargrove, 24, first met one of these wreaths at eleven years old — anonymously, on her own front door, the week after her father died. She spent thirteen years not knowing who left it. She works beside Clara every morning now, and next autumn the bench and the notebook are hers. This is Nell’s first season. It is also Clara’s last.
Nell handles the online shop and reads customers’ letters aloud to Clara in the evenings. Every wreath ships from the shed, wrapped by hand. Clara keeps the price low on purpose — she wants these on doors, not in storage.
100% Satisfaction Guarantee
Hang it on your door and live with it through October. If it isn’t the most beautiful thing you have ever put on your door — for any reason — send it back within 30 days for a full refund, no questions asked. The wreath your order paid for stays exactly where it is. Clara has stood behind every wreath that left the shed for twenty-nine years. This one is no different.
Hand-made in Waitsfield, Vermont · Every wreath bought funds one given free · Clara’s final season, strictly limited · Ships within 3–5 business days · Delivery 3–10 days
The Final 49
The Final 49
Message from the porch:
After forty-five summers on the east porch of the house her late husband Frank built on Ocracoke Island, Ellie Hartwell’s doctor was clear: the arthritis in her right hand has ended the fine appliqué work for good. Every bag was crocheted with the same two olive-wood hooks Frank brought back from Florence in 1979 — and every motif is a summer from Ellie’s own life. The turtle morning of 2004. Her daughter’s porch wedding in 1998. Frank’s last swim in 2010.
These 49 bags are the last ones her hands will ever crochet. Each ships with a parchment-wrapped keepsake from her Mason jar — a shell, a sand-dollar fragment, or a sliver of driftwood from 45 summers of beachcombing.
When they’re gone, they’re gone — and the porch goes quiet.
Shipping with UPS / USPS
Shipping with UPS / USPS
Free shipping across the United States
- Delivery time: 5–8 business days
- Insured: Every package is fully insured
- Hand-packed in tissue wrap and a kraft box — no plastic, no styrofoam
🌳 Carbon-neutral shipping with UPS / USPS
142 Verified Autumn Wreaths Owners
Excellent 4.9
What Clara’s customers are saying
Frequently Asked Questions
Got a question? Here’s how to reach us.
Got a question? Here’s how to reach us.
Ellie’s granddaughter Eliza and the Craft Folk team personally respond to every single email — as fast as we possibly can. Whether you have a question about your order, your bag, or just want to ask about the porch, we’re here.
You can reach us:
- Mon – Fri: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM (ET)
- Saturday: 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM (ET)
Email: hello@craft-folk.com
Can I return my bag if I don’t love it?
Can I return my bag if I don’t love it?
Of course. We stand behind every piece that leaves Ellie’s porch. If a Hartwell bag arrives anything less than perfect, or you simply don’t love it within 30 days, write us at returns@craft-folk.com and we’ll send a prepaid label and refund your purchase. No hassle, no headaches. The Mason jar keepsake stays with you either way — Ellie was specific about that.
How is each Hartwell bag made?
How is each Hartwell bag made?
Every bag is hand-crocheted by Ellie Hartwell on the east porch of the house her late husband Frank built on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, in 1981 — three blocks back from the Pamlico Sound. The cotton-polyester yarn comes from a small Wilmington mill that closed in 2020; Ellie bought the final stock. Every stitch is made with one of the two olive-wood crochet hooks Frank brought back from Florence in May 1979. Each 3D motif — the loggerhead turtle, the wild daisies, the palm trees, the sun and waves, the starfish and shell — is crocheted free-hand, four to seven hours per appliqué, and traces back to one specific summer of Ellie’s life. Each bag ships with a parchment-wrapped keepsake from her Mason jar of 45 summers of beach finds.
No patterns. No two alike. No fiftieth bag.