Martha_Stewart_Living_November_2016

36

GOOD LIVING

Décor

HOW-TO

1. Cut individual cotton
   branches to 4 or 5 inches
   long, depending on
   wreath size.


2. Wire each branch with
   floral wire before twisting
   onto wreath, or attach
   with hot glue or twist ties.


3. Keep adding branches
   until wreath is covered.

YOU’LL NEED

Ten bunches

of bracts

to cover an

8-inch

grapevine

wreath

YOU’LL NEED

Two cot ton

bouquets for an

8-inch grapevine

wreath, three

for a 10-inch, or

four for a 12-inch

SOUTHERN STAR WREATH

Once the cotton has been picked from the stem,

you’re left with these pretty bracts. Fashion them

into a rustic round and you’re turning debris into

décor. Askew sells his creations at nicholasaskew

design.com. If you’re looking to DIY one, use

a grapevine wreath (available at garden stores).

HOW-TO

1. Trim bracts to 4-to-5-inch
   pieces. Attach to wreath
   using floral wire, hot glue,
   or zip ties.


2. Keep adding bracts until
   wreath reaches desired
   size. To extend the look be-
   yond a wreath, “use bracts
   in floral arrangements,
   or display them alone in a
   “I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO WORK with cotton,” says Nicholas Askew—which isn’t sur- vase,” Askew suggests.
   prising, given that he lives on a 1,200-acre cotton farm his great-grandfather started
   back in 1901. What might have been a bit of a shocker to his neighbors in Eure, North
   Carolina (population: 1,850), however? “I didn’t want to be a farmer,” he says. After
   graduating from North Carolina State University in 2013 with a degree in horticulture
   styling, Askew was determined to “turn this cash crop into something elegant.” One
   day, he shaped some cotton branches into a wreath and drove it to the Preservation
   Society of Charleston, South Carolina, where it was sold immediately. Soon afterward,
   he had a slew of orders for cotton wedding bouquets and built a stock of wreaths that
   started, he says, “selling like hotcakes.” Despite all that, Askew realized last year he
   wasn’t utilizing the beauty of the entire plant when he gazed at a field after picking
   was finished and noticed the sculptural shapes of the bracts—the dried stems that
   hold the bolls of cotton. “My dad was just going to mow them all down,” says Askew.

“I told him, ‘Dad, I’m going to sell your trash!’” He fashioned the bracts into what he

dubbed Southern Star wreaths, sold them all, and is currently doubling production

for Nicholas Askew Designs. Next up: a heart-shaped version for Valentine’s Day. After

all, he says, “roses die, but cotton lasts forever.”

Field of Dreams

Askew in the middle of his family’s farm

during the fall harvest.

COTTON WREATH

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