Supreme Sunday

Today I started working from the third – and last – section of the book, called “Hard Embellishments.”

Today’s technique is beading.  And it’s no surprise that I LOVE to do beadwork!  I could happily spend days on end with my bead stash, although I would probably not be able to move after just a couple of hours!  LOL!

The book describes several beading stitches.  Let’s see if I can remember what they are called.

This one is a three-bead freeform cluster.  The middle bead sits on top of the first and last bead and it makes a nice texture.

The letter ‘L’ is done using a couching stitch.  Each line is strung as one length and then tacked to the background.  The ‘O’ is bugle stitch. 

The ‘V’ is outlined using a back- stitch.  This is the stitch I use the most and I think it gives me more control of where the beads land.  The ‘E’ is made up of a variety of stacked stitch.  There are many more ways to do this stitch simply by changing up the kind of bead used.

In this (blurry) photo, you can sort of see the height of the stacked stitches.

Here, there are two examples.  The upper section is a single stitch along the ends of an embroidered feather stitch.  Below that is a picot edge stitch.

And then a couple of fringes.  The larger set has alternate fringe ending in a novelty bead.

And here is the full page.  In case you’re wondering, the background fabric is the one I tested ways to discharge the dye.  You can read about that here.

Wow!  That sure was fun.  I will need to do some work to finish this particular piece, but the beads definitely are an improvement!  We are approaching the end of this book.  Don’t worry, though, there are several techniques to try yet so stay tuned.