Re-read the first statement in "About me" above. Thank you. You may continue.
Back in June or July another member of our orchid society asked if I wanted to take charge of the display for our society coming up in Sept. or did I want to be responsible for our local show display in Nov. Inasmuch as I was holding my breath during all the moves and life changing events in my offspring's lives plus entertaining grandchildren (current & upcoming) and couldn't begin to focus on an orchid display, I opted for the Nov. responsibility. Of course, that caught up with me about a month ago when we had a meeting of the show committee. It occurred to me a few days before the meeting that they probably expected me to have a plan. Since the theme of the show is "Falling for Orchids" I thought a large cornucopia with orchids spilling out of it would be just the ticket, and they really like the idea. Unfortunately, there were no LARGE cornucopias to be found.
Next step was to contact another society member who actually builds furniture. He's retired from working oil rigs in the Gulf. He said yes he thought he could come up with a frame using wire. And he certainly did. He brought it to my house a couple of weeks later in his van, thank God, because I couldn't have gotten it into my Toyota Camry. Here's a picture of it.
Not only was it made of heavy guage and chicken wire but also zip ties (those, red, yellow, green things you see) and on some joints two or three layes of duct tape. I thought he did a great job, but I'm here to tell you those zip ties don't want to turn even when their ends are sticking out, and it is not feasible to try to sew through duct tape.
It now became my task to cover the #!%@$&**$# thing. Papier mache was suggested by a friend, but coming up with enough paper was a big problem plus where to do such a messy task and also leave it to dry was not doable. Besides I'm really lousy at that sort of thing. Finally I decided on old shade cloth of which I had an abundance.
The first step was to line the opening section with black. The plan is to have one or two orchid plants in the opening. There is an unwritten law (in the U.S.) that orchids should be displayed with a black or dark green background.
Next came covering the outside with another kind of shadecloth with different texture and a different color, trying to simulate that woven look, don't you know.
You are probably wondering: what kind of thread? what kind of needle? Well, it turned out that 6 strand embroidery thread worked---3 skeins of black, and 4 skeins of beige. Needles? embroidery, tapestry, and both the small and large mattress needles; also a pair of pliers was used occasionally to pull the needle through. It took several days to finish that part of the job.
Next it was haul that sucker outdoors for a spray paint job. However, I'm going to skip the outdoor picture because it only shows what two cans of paint could do, and you want to see the finished color, right?
Now the big question became how do I finish off that edge that will be center front in the display and surrounding those orchids. Raffia? Yarn? Cloth? Grapevine? I promised myself it would not be anything that required more sewing. Well, here's a preview of the finished edge. I can't actually put it on until we set up the display because I wouldn't be able to get it through the doors of my house.
You can't imagine how happy I am to have that simulated cornucopia off my dining table and resting comfortably on the bed in the guest room. The show is two weeks from now, and I'll let you see how it looks in the display. Keep your fingers crossed for us. Oh, and regarding that opening sentence? Talk about taking on big jobs . . . . I rest my case.
