So Much White

Well, how about that. I did everything over the weekend that I said I would. When does that ever happen? I mean, weekdays I can get pretty predictable, but the weekends are usually no man's land. On Friday I put together a back drop necklace in white. It's no different than the black one, but man is taking pictures of white pieces a pain in the neck. They don't contrast well on my skin, I have no proper clothing to show it off so I have to improvise and tweaking the settings to show the piece better makes my skin start to look like one of those special sun damage pictures which is not terribly attractive. I even ended up doing a couple of the pictures in black and white to alleviate some of the issues.

Then after all the white picture drama, what did I do? Work on something else white of course, because I'm a sadist. I got the white ribbon I had ordered in and spent much of Saturday asking for opinions on the ribbon placement. I used this photo and asked which looked better. The results were plenty, but pretty split and I was getting nowhere until some reasons started to accompany the opinions. Under wins handily at that point. Tacking the lace to the ribbon adds stability so the lace won't be stretched out over the course of the day. It also allows for different color ribbons to act as a pop of color if one is desired. Before I listed it, I sourced ribbon and found a place with an incredible color selection in uniform sizes. I didn't realize it when I ordered this ribbon, but it is an odd size and I can't find any more it's same width.

Once that decision was made I struggled with photos of the sash and got it listed too. I had some black ribbon on hand to demonstrate the color contrasting, but had to list the other colors as custom. It seems like that's pretty standard for most bridal pieces, so it shouldn't be a big deal. Of course I'm under no illusions that this is going to fly off the shelves. I was challenged to make one and I did. I am fairly satisfied with the final piece so the task is complete.

So what then for today? Well, I managed one good sale over the weekend breaking a six day no sales streak that came back the next day, but I digress. I have one collar necklace that needs remaking so I can list it again and that should take up most of the day for me. I can tell you that I have no plans to work in white again for quite some time unless brides start breaking down my door.

The Sash Grows

I honestly thought this piece was going to take much longer to construct, but once I had the pattern down it really worked up quite quickly. Here we have the tatting all done with seven repeats of the medallion. Since they're all facing the correct way I'm pretty proud of myself. I also think I worked out a good way to attach the ribbon. On each end I skipped the long, twisted crossed picots at the edges. That leaves me with a section that the ribbon can fold over. I'll sew the ends down and I think I might add a bit of embroidery there to give it a nice finishing touch, but I won't be sure of that until the ribbon arrives. I thought I might be able to find it in the fabric shop, but the one we have in town is sad beyond the telling of it, so online works better.

Once the tatting was done I started work on the crystals. Again, I found a nice pattern to sew them on. By that I mean I got a nice order to work in, up one side and back up the other. I even worked out how to go from crystal to crystal without cutting and tying the thread. I wove through carefully chosen stitches to make that happen. It still took hours to sew, but again, I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. It has a nice sparkle, but not an overwhelming one. It's perfectly clear that the focus is on the lace. Of course now that that's done, I have nothing to do with it until the ribbon arrives.

Today is the husband's birthday for which he took the day off work. So as you might have guessed we'll be off adventuring the day away. So unless I want to tat in the car, I'm not working on anything today. I will still be thinking on how I'm going to best present this piece to be photographed though. In the end I'll probably just wing it as always, but it's nice to pretend to prepare anyway. So have a good day everyone.