November 2006 Activity -- Wreath Making

Saturday, November 18th, 11:00am-12:00noon
Arlington Westin Gateway Hotel
Arlington, VA
http://www.jlnv.org/

This wreath making workshop was part of the Junior League of Northern Virginia Enchanted Forest Fundraiser.

Now, two of your dilettantes were members of the Junior League of Northern Virginia for a short amount of time (of course, we're dilettantes!) and found the grown-up sorority aspect of it all a little much, replete with passwords to enter meetings (who knew they were such sticklers?), refreshment committees, and the members continually buying more of the raffle/fundraiser tickets themselves than selling them to other people. Combine that with paying dues to have friends and we both decided we'd been there/done that in college and this time we didn't have the benefit of formals or keggers to make it palatable. (Let's just say we were not Sigma Psyched.)

But I digress, the most frustrating thing about the Junior League is HOW HARD IT IS TO SIGN UP TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EVENTS THEY SPONSOR. Jesus Christ! It's a good thing we REALLY wanted to do this (okay, we kind of wanted to do it and it worked with all of our schedules). That motivated me to work through finding out what the dates were for this event (saw no advertising), getting half-information on the JLNV web site (do we get to keep the wreaths we make? that's not the case with the gingerbread houses...so we didn't know), e-mailing three or four different officers and then leaving an (unreturned) voice mail. Finally, I received a registration form that I was to complete and FAX back...no on-line registration. Oy vey! (Kindly note my uber-inclusive usage of both Christian and Jewish imprecations.)

Anyway, we got to the Westin that day to participate, parked the car ($15 valet parking) and went into the hotel. The wreath-making workshop had about 40 people in it, all separated into round tables of about six people each. A charming woman named Lourdes was the workshop instructor. She could make a bow like nobody's business and spent about 45 minutes of the 60 minute workshop lovingly crafting bows while explaining to us how to do it. That was all great, but after the "grab your supplies" free-for-all and getting back to our tables so we could fluff our wreaths (yes, we were fluffers...imagine if this post had focused on that aspect...you'd be so much more interested right now, dear reader), we had about 15 minutes to complete our wreaths and get the heck out of that room.

This was no problem for Amy "Bow Showoff" Schirmer, who had a gorgeous bow completed in about a nano-second, or for Amanda "Double Ribbon Bow Extraordinaire" Lonsdale, but Nicole and I were a little slower on the uptake. Lourdes offered to go around to the tables and help those who were a little less crafty to get their bows completed, but also liked to stop and admire those bows that were already done. With about five minutes left, I, Kathleen "Crankypants" Canedo, got a little hostile with sweet Lourdes, snapping at her about three times as she stood across the table from me adding "movement" to Amanda's bow, while Nicole and I still didn't even have the beginnings of one. Finally, she made my bow for me, and then made Nicole's for her. We each added a few sprigs of gold berries and some gold ornaments and Voila! homemade wreaths!

The dilettante day ended with lunch (and beers) at nearby Rock Bottom Brewery. Nothing like the sweet, golden nectar to melt away a case of the crankypants.