CQJP 2013: Sculpted Silk Ribbon Rose

I have been working on this rose today and finally got it to where I want it!  I used a 13mm variegated Silk Ribbon and Clear Thread, but I didn't do typical Silk Ribbon Embroidery techniques but used Ribbonwork techniques instead.

Recently I bought a couple of books that inspired me.  "Roses" by Di Van Niekerk and "The Artful Ribbon: Ribbon Flowers" by Candace Kling.  The Artful Ribbon is the book I was really looking for to learn ribbonwork flowers.  Though the book by Di Van Niekerk is inspiring as well.

To make this rose I started out making a cabochon rose and then went off in my own direction the rest of the way, fiddling and as Candace Kling says sculpting until it was something I liked.  She's right, it is like sculpting with ribbon.  It took me a few hours working on it though which for me is a long time since most SRE doesn't take that long per flower.  Most of the roses in either book is made out of bigger ribbon, but I needed something smaller so I used the 13mm silk ribbon I had.  I'm not sure if I'm going to repeat this process for the rest of the roses in the cup but this front and center one needed to be extra special.

I liked how Candace Kling uses Ribbon Widths to measure out how much ribbon you would need, it makes it easy to figure out how much to use with any size ribbon you choose.  The bad side was I would have like a bit more detailed how to get a specific result.  All the basic is there and you can take it and run with it, like I did going off in my own direction.  But there were moments that I was wondering how to get it to look like what I wanted and no directions to help me get there.  It's such a subjective process, I know, but I was wishing for a little more detail to help figure out what I wanted.  More experience will help me, but it's nice to be able to glean from what others have learned to give you a boost too.