Wedding Dress Modesty Panel - Beading and Embellishing

Part five today - the beads and jewel embellishments.

I'd never used pearl beads of this size before, or diamond-like sparklies either, so I wasn't really sure of myself here.

This first shot you might remember from the introductory post in this project series - it's from the dress proper and shows what sort of jewel trims it had, including the pearl beads in the small flowers and leaves.  Actually, I forgot to put them above the leaves in the end....  Just remembered that whilst writing this!

Here's the whole panel with the pearl beads added.

And a close up of my favourite section with just the beads on.

The dress proper had two different sizes of pearl beads, whereas I was working with just one, so I ended up adding more in later on to even things up a little in the central, large flower.

These are the sparklies I was given to work with from both top and bottom.  I'd never really seen anything like this before, especially not with a view to working with them.  As you can see, the back has an 'x' shaped finish and no visible attaching mechanism like beads have.  So, what I ended up doing was fastening the jewel to the embroidery by catching threads around the arms that hold the stone in the setting.  That worked very well

Finally for today we have a few shots of the final panel with the addition of the sparklies.  I loved these.  They ended up being realy quite easy to do and they just look great!  I was happy to add the leftovers to my stash. ☺  Wish I could think of something else to use them on now.  Couture 'commissions' aren't something I get every day, sadly!  Part of me rather likes the idea of working as an embroiderer in a big fashion house.

Here's the whole panel still in the hoop, just before being taken out and prepared for fitting.  More on that next time, on Monday.  Join me then! ☺♥

Text and images © Elizabeth Braun 2017

Assembling a Wired Stumpwork Flower

A couple of days ago I posted a tutorial on creating wired needlelace elements for stumpwork, which you can use for flowers, leaves, insect wings and several other things.  Now it's time to fasten the detached elements to the main fabric and complete the motif.

This is the piece I was working on, the now deleted (waaah!) DMC Stumpwork kit 'Poppy and Beetle'.  Those of you who've been following this project will notice that I re-worked the bud to the original design after all!!  Anyway, the poppy was the only part left to complete and you can see where it's to be located, top left..

The first thing to do was to as near as fill that oval shape with beads as the supplies in the kit allowed.  The instructions actually suggested you do this after attaching the petals, but there were two reasons why I decided to work it the other way around: 1) I think it would be very hard to attach or stitch anything when there are going to be a lot of wire ends from the petals in the way on the back; and 2) One can never be sure that the beads provided would fill the space and, if the petals were already in place, then there could be a gap and/or pattern lines showing.  Yikes!  So, beads came first and were attached with one strand of black thread and a beading needle.

Here you can see me preparing the holes for the third petal.  Using a thick needle, such as a chenille type, punch a couple of holes where you want the wires to go through.  I did this as close to the beading as reasonably possible so that printed pattern lines weren't visible afterwards (I can't tell you how much I hate being able to see that sort of thing on a finished piece, it SO spoils it!)

When the holes are ready, poke the free ends of the wires through and pull them from the back so that the petal (or wing, or leaf etc) sits on the fabric.  Don't concern yourself with the angle it sits at just yet.

When all the detached elements are in place, turn the work over and pull them through as far as you can.  Then bend the wires to stop them from going back through again and trim off some of the excess using wire cutters or goldwork scissors (anything toughened, but NOT your regular embroidery pair!)

Using the black thread I still had attached from the beading, I secured the wires to the back of the fabric by weaving it around the wires and taking it through the back of whatever stitches I could.  Whatever you do, take care not to allow the securing stitching to show on the front (which is possibly what motivated DMC to suggest doing this before the beading, but you can see how easy it would be to attach beads through this lot, right?)  Trim the wires as much as you can, but leave enough to make sure they're secured.

Turning back to the front and you can now arrange the petals in any way you like.  The wire bends easily, so it won't be too hard to have them at any angle you choose.

I hope that was helpful and that it's inspired you to have a go at wiring a flower or something similar. If you do, please leave me a link to see your work.  It's rather hard finding blogs of active stumpworkers!

Here's the final piece, the bottom photo of which surprised and delighted me by remaining at number one on the Stitchin' Fingers content and photos leaderbeards for a couple of days!

I still have two more of these kits (see the 'Stumpwork page for the first two that I worked - 'Bee' and 'Ladybird'), which are 'Dragonfly' and 'Butterfly', so look out for those coming soon!

© Elizabeth Braun 2012

Sample 4 completed - snakeskin beadweaving

I seem to be catching up on my C&G samples in reverse order just now!! I put Sample 5 (see last post) through the wash this weekend and it is now frayed and, whilst it was never overly impressive, it now looks really rubbish! Just need to trim a few stray threads and press it, but I will try to avoid that kind of thing where possible in future. Really not my scene at all.

Sample number 4 was based on reptiles, so I hunted on-line and found a terrific snake to work from. What do you think of this chap? He's rather cute in his own way, isn't he?

From our source material we had to do some artwork as ever and I just did a section of the last 2½ coils, from which I drew up a beading chart. This kinda taught me how to do charts for things like cross stitch, needlepoint and so on as well, so I think I may well be able to do that after all. Given that cross stitch is about the world's most popular form of embroidery, being able to create charts may even create some income one day?? But I wouldn't hold my breath there!!

Using a beading loom, which you can see here all threaded up and ready for use, the chart was then turned into a piece of beadweaving. I took this photo whilst doing one of the later rows. You string all the needed beads for one row onto the needle, then, from underneath, slot them between the warp threads. After that, you go back through the row with the beading needle and thread, taking care to go over the warp threads this time. Then it's on to the next row.

This is the finished piece, with each bead kind of representing a scale on the original picture and this is the beading needle when I'd finished. It was straight when I started!!! I didn't think I'd like this and most of the ladies in our first year group were saying that they couldn't see themselves doing this again, how it hurt their eyes etc, but I really enjoyed this and didn't find it any bother to my eyes at all. The only hassle was that the beading thread I used, a nylon wire sort of thread, may have been rather thicker than would have been more comfy to use. One of the other teachers who popped in last week to see what we were doing etc said that you had to take the needle back through the whole row at once, but I wasn't able to do that as it got caught and was impossible to pull through. Don't think it made any difference to the finished sample though. I'm hoping to get a nice, little bead loom as I think this type of this has definite potential, as long as you don't mind using lots of beads and remember that the beads are higher than they are wide, so about 2 high would equal 3 wide. Different from the exact squareness of your regular cross stitch!

Next card complete and first quilt started

<- Here's the latest addition to the card collection.

And here ->

are the squares all cut out for the baby cot/crib quilt. The smaller, turquoise ones at the front will be made into 2 regular sized squares. The scrap of fabric I had in that colour (which I really wanted to use) wasn't wide enough, so I'm having 2 squares that are different from the rest. If it looks naff, I'll sub in two other coloured ones. This will be my first stab at quilting, but it doesn't look like a difficult pattern. I'll need to get some nice fabirc for the backing of it soon as it's to be done by next Saturday ready for handover on the Sunday. After that, I can relax and finish the dog. The next 'due bys' aren't needed until July, then September.

Bead-a-long with me!!

Beads now total 312. That's 39.5%!!! Hope to make it over 50% today and I may get a good start on it as I can't sleep and may as well do some more now. It's 1am. I'm just so wound up these days that sleep has legged it and won't talk to me.=(

Got a DSL Gift Certificate for $25 the other day, so I've just ordered 15 skeins of GAST to re-update my collection with all the new shades that have appeared.

Send me sleep! I'll pay!