creativeI made an armature by braiding heavy floral wire into a band, and then wove the stems of the leaves from the fake foliage into it:
| Wreath Raw materials: some kind of fake plant with long leaves |
 |
| Closeup of leaves |
 |
| Leaves stripped from the stems of the fake plant |
 |
| one of the leaf units |
 |
| About a hundred of the leaves after two coats of silver spray paint |
 |
| braided 12 gauge aluminum wire for wreath Yup, just your basic 3-strand plait, only done in solid-core wire. |
 |
| Full-length view of braided armature |
 |
| Completed "Laurel" wreath |
 |
 |
In the course of weaving the leaves in, I discovered the enamel was still slightly soft, so the whole thing is out curing in the sun right now (and is *very* shiny!). I'll add a lining (craft foam, or felt, or something after it's hardened a little more, as otherwise I know the aluminum wire (and pigment in the silver paint) will leave black/grey marks on me.
So all the pieces are done well in advance of packing for Montreal!
There's one more sewing project left; I need to pick out the top 3 inches of the zipper on my SlickItUP.com racing suit and reset it, as it came out slightly wonky when I recut the suit to fit better. This time I'll hand baste the whole works together before putting it on the machine, so the two sides have the same amount of stretch in them and the collar lines up right!