White

Here it is, my frothy, flowery, sparkly, satiny neckpiece. I think that folk are calling them bibs, which doesn't appeal to me as bibs are, in my experience, covered in drool and mashed food, worn by a tooth wielding toddler. Not what I had in mind for this elaborate piece. 'Scuse the not so great photo, it was last minute & about to go into the box, and I couldn't be bothered faffing about all photo studio like.

Can't quite recall how many hours went into this: a lot of crochet time watching DVDs, a lot of angsty sorting out time, making combinations of the flowers to see where they should go, figuring out what sort of backing to use (hello felt), deciding on buttons/sparkly doodads to go on top,( I had originally wanted to use clear glass but they were all random and I don't do random very well), and finally stitching them all on.

Oh but wait, there's more. Although the felt is a great backing, the reverse side was just yuck and unfinished, so back to the satin it was, cutting it out and ironing a seam allowance, and oh joy hand stitching the whole darn thing on. I pretended that I was a coutourier, it took about three hours, but for some reason I found it perversely enjoyable. Plus I was listening to the cricket which was just divine, after all this hot weather, something was definitely missing - it was Kerry O'Keeffe.

I'm glad I went the extra distance to sew the satin on, it looks rather polished and well worth the hefty price tag. Methinks the whole White Christmas ensemble will be curated early this coming week, and on display at Craft Vic from then on. Wonder what sort of dramas every one else had making their work? Maybe it was just me.......

One last observation, the thing that really shits me about using fabric is the ironing. Do all you fabric folk have the ironing board out all the time? Mine usually gathers cobwebs until I really need my linen pants, though at the moment it all elasticised waists for me, linen pants are a long way away!

Listening to: The cricket on 774 ABC Melbourne