Wedding Rehearsal Ribbon Bouquet

I took a hiatus from my blog immediately prior to and following my wedding.  I got crazy busy, as I assume most brides can understand.  Now that all of the wedding craziness is over, I have so many things to post!  I made almost all of my wedding decorations and gifts.  I’m still waiting on my mom to send me my sister’s pictures (she was instructed to take pictures of everything I made for my blog), but there are a few things I can post in the mean time.  I plan to kind of go in chronological order as things were used during the wedding weekend.  Hopefully I don’t miss anything that way.

The first homemade item to make an appearance was my rehearsal bow-quet.  It’s been a long-standing tradition that a rehearsal bouquet be created from the ribbons from the wedding shower.  I made one.  I’m a little unhappy that this is going to be the first thing to go on the blog.  I ended up not having a ton of time to work on it and quickly threw it together the night before the rehearsal.  I do think the idea would be really cute if fully implemented.

My goal was to make a whole bouquet of ribbon rosettes and wrap any leftover ribbons around the stems.  Since I was short on time, I only made three rosettes and wrapped the rest of the ribbons around.  The rosettes were overwhelmed by the other ribbons.

Materials:

• The ribbons from the wedding shower
• Something to use for the flower stem (I used leftover stem from artificial flowers we used in the wedding.  Green pipe cleaners would make a great stem.)
• Scissors
• Either a needle and thread or hot glue

Instructions:

• Make the desired number of rosettes.  (I used the same technique to make the ribbon rosettes that was used to make the burlap rosettes in my Burlap Roses post.  The technique is described in Snug as a Bug Baby’s blog.  I honestly don’t think I can do a better job describing the technique than she does, and since I did it very last minute, I did not take the time to take pictures of every step.  For this project I used a needle and thread instead of hot glue.  The concept is the same, simply stitch each “petal” in place instead of gluing it.  The three rosettes turned out really cute.  I just wish that I had time to make more of them.)
• Wrap the rosettes in any remaining ribbon

Difficulty:  Easy

Time Required:  10 minutes per rosette

Overall Experience:  Good.  I wish that I had time to make more rosettes

Burlap Roses

Shortly after Craig and I were engaged in December, one of my bridesmaids decided to throw us an engagement party.  The location she chose already had a rustic feel, so she wanted to go with the burlap and mason jar theme so popular on Pinterest.  I had pinned some burlap roses some time ago that I really wanted to try to make.  My original pin didn’t include a tutorial, so I went searching for a tutorial and found a great one on Snug as a Bug Baby’s blog.  The blog entry show step by step instructions for making beautiful burlap roses.  Each step even includes a picture for clarity.  If you choose to make these roses, here are my tips and suggestions:

1. I didn’t actually know where to buy burlap since this was my first burlap craft project.  (I use it in concrete applications for research projects somewhat often.)  I discovered that you can buy it fairly cheap at Lowe’s or Home Depot.  This is very low quality, bulk burlap.  I ended up using this as the tablecloth at the party.  At JoAnn Fabric, I found all different colors of burlap and even burlap with different designs.  I picked up small amounts of several different types for decorating at the party.
2. This project makes a huge mess.  You end up with burlap “strings” everywhere.  Be prepared to deal with that when you are finished.  It also smells like burlap.
3. The tutorial does not explicitly say that you need to hot glue every petal.  It says to glue where needed.  Since hot glue does flow through the petals, I thought I might be able to get by with gluing every other petal.  This was a mistake.  Glue every petal.  Glue liberally.
4. In the project, the crafter cuts strips of burlap.  Burlap ribbon is a thing (although I’ve never used it).  It might be worth trying the ribbon.  This would result in less mess and cleaner looking flowers.  I for one kind of like the “strings” coming off of the raw edge of the roses.  They add to the rustic feel.

This is once again a project I decided to do before the blog idea came into my head or I would have posted more pictures.  I love the way the flowers turned out.  The were a big hit at the party.  Many people came up to our table at the restaurant and asked where we got them.  The official restaurant photographer even took a picture of them and added it to the restaurant’s Facebook page!  After the party, I put all of the flowers in one mason jar and keep them on the coffee table in my living room.

Difficulty:  Easy

Time Required:  2 Movies

Overall Experience:  Good

Here are a few pictures of the party itself.  I love how the decorations turned out!

Saturday Night Purse

In addition to the Celtic Love Knot Scarf, I also made a purse for my friend Jenny’s fundraiser for her mission trip to Kenya.  I found this beautiful purse on cogknition’s site.  The pattern is freely available on the site.

Unfortunately, I did not have time before the auction to try to get the beautiful custom handles and leaves.  Instead, I was forced to purchase plain black bamboo handles from my local JoAnn. For the purse itself, I had a very difficult time achieving the crisp herringbone pattern shown in the picture.  The pattern is achieved by slipping some stitches from the left to right needle while holding the yarn in front of the stitches.  The purse is knit very tightly so that it is quite sturdy; however, I had a tendency to hold the yarn too tightly resulting in a non-existent herringbone pattern.  I ripped out my first attempt and started placing an extra needle under the yarn as I passed it in front of the stitches.  This helped, but the needle wasn’t big enough.  I ended up placing an extremely large (size N, 10mm) crocheting hook under the yarn as I passed the yarn in front of the stitches.  This process slowed me down, but I did achieve a herringbone pattern.  My pattern was still not as crisp as that shown in the picture.  Also, since I didn’t have the fancy leaves to put behind the roses, I didn’t think the knitted roses really looked like roses.  I substituted this Megan Mill’s crocheted rose instead.  Either I didn’t count right while making the rose, or the pattern had a problem.  It wasn’t necessary for the pattern to be exact, so I didn’t go back to see why I didn’t have the correct number of stitches left as I reached the end of Row 3.  I finished off and sewed the rose onto the front of the purse.

The purse turned out beautifully.  It is quite sturdy and both larger and heavier than it appears.  The knitted section of the purse ended up being about 8 in. tall and 10 in. wide.

Difficulty:  Moderate

The purse was constructed of a modified stockinette stitch, so the stitching wasn’t difficult.  The herringbone pattern was difficult to achieve as noted above.

Time Required:  8 movies

I didn’t like how the pattern was turning out, so I repeatedly knitted and ripped out stitches.  It would have taken less time if I hadn’t ripped out so much.

Overall Experience:  Good

The purse turned out really cute and sturdy.  I would make it again.