Ribbon is my weakness. The sight of reels and rolls of rainbow coloured satin sets my pulse racing and my bank account on edge.
This time of year is when my ribbon lust reaches fever pitch. Only yesterday I purchased 25 metres of the stuff, then went home and stared at it for a little while. I arranged it artfully and took a few photographs, then wound it into neat little bundles and placed it back into the paper bag.
There is a point to this ribbon hoarding; I’ll be using it when I wrap my Christmas presents. The only problem is that not a single present has been purchased yet. Knowing that there is an ever-ready supply of ribbon on standby helps me to sleep at night.
I’m not crafty, but ribbon and gift-wrapping give me the opportunity to at least pretend to be. The ability to tie a perfect bow is one of the things I wish I could put on my CV. The sight of a poorly tied bow depresses me and I’ve been known to go around “tweaking” the bows of other people’s presents piled at the base of their tree.
Buying ribbon involves a visit to my local haberdashery – an odd little place, where the walls are lined with plastic boxes of zips and pins. It smells strongly of the gas heater that the elderly shopkeeper sits next to as she knits and serves the occasional customer. VV Rouleaux it is not. But the place has a weird charm and the prices are ridiculously low. The ribbon reels are artlessly arranged in a plastic bread crate. In an act of defiance towards metric measurements, it is still sold by the yard.
Using real ribbon gives a gift added value. It can be recycled as a hair accessory for a start. People will unwrap the gift carefully and set the ribbon to one side, it will probably end up in their “messy drawer”, along with some takeaway menus and oddly shaped remnants of wrapping paper. There it will wait until the day someone decides that Aunt Maude’s birthday present needs a bit of extra pizzazz. And so, the ribbon life cycle continues.
I also accept that some folk will simply toss the ribbon aside, but it was still worth the effort. The present looked pretty! For a brief moment in time, it was perfect.
Image via Laineys Repertoire's Flickr