Flowers and sinamay

As I predicted, I had no time to do college work last week (although offhand, 10 garments finished, so not like I was asleep!).

However, I've been doing some catching up today - watching films for research, and I made a silk flower.

I started the flower - cut it out - in class last week, but never got the chance to put it together, so the pieces sat in my sewing box until today.  Now I've finally made it up, and I'm very pleased with it.  Especially given it's a first attempt, and made with a melon baller and needle nosed pliers, instead of proper flower irons!

The very centre of the flower is black silk, covered with caviar beads (these went a little astray, as I wasn't neat enough with the glue), and three grey peacock coloured freshwater pearls, set onto wires.

And at the weekend, I spent the time that my stall was quiet playing with a bias strip of soft sinamay.  

Last week at college we covered bias brims, and I used sinamay for mine, but (as per usual) got so frustrated with it that I tried to do something different with it, to make myself not hate it.  So I played with it, and folded it, and pleated it and moulded it, but no matter what I did with it, I still hated it.  

But this strip of soft sinamay at the weekend...  First I rolled the edges, and I think I've now got the hang of that, with the soft stuff at least.  Then I sat and played with it, just twisting it into shapes for a while, during the quiet bits.  I found a small button headpiece base that I was in the process of blocking in silk (still on the block, and in the bottom of my sewing box wrapped in muslin for some unknown reason(!?)).  So I started playing with the sinamay in conjunction with that.  And shock, horror, I found a shape in sinamay I don't hate and detest!

It's very far from perfect, and equally far from being a finished piece, but I don't loathe it.  I consider that a breakthrough!!

So I plan to take the sinamay 'thing' I did last week back to college tomorrow, and have another play with it if I have time.  Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'll ever love sinamay, or even like it that much, but I'm determined to find a way to work with it.