Felt and broken jewellery

I’ve been playing with small things over the Christmas period, like this single earring drop and a section of a felt sample I made for a lesson at school. Combined and embroidered a bit more, they became the front of a brooch.

Whipped back stitch to hold down the drop with a scrap of thick silk thread couched down underneath it.

 

The plain lilac felt back was secured with a beaded blanket stitch using some greyish purple delicas…

…and then the natural (deliberately wobbly) bottom edge was finished with a fringe of delicas, seed and pearl beads.

A nice quick little project and a good way of using up odds and ends of beads, threads and felt.

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Beading and metalwork

The first circle I domed was a bit too small to use for the cocoon pendants and has been kicking about in my bits and pieces box for a while until I had a brainwave the other day for how to use it: as the centrepiece of a beaded brooch.

I used a piece of purple cotton and some frosted AB delicas in a bronzy-purple colour, stitching a circle around the base of the dome and then adding a slightly smaller circle on top to hold it in place. A further concentric circle gave it a bit of a frame and then I added a fringe with tiny pearl beads for accent.

As it’s so small (the centre section is only about an inch in diameter) I struggled to find a brooch back the right size. Fortunately another one of my vintage breakdowns yielded a dear little round back which fitted perfectly.

It came together in a matter of a couple of hours and is now in my Etsy shop here.

And don’t forget, that if you enter TOPAZ1 at the checkout from now until the 20th of December 2014 then you can get 20% off any item in my shop – vintage, upcycled or handmade jewellery. Last few days!

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Beads and daisies

The lazy daisy cuff book is coming along steadily. It’s the perfect project for working on when I’m out and about, and even a few more stitches while I wait for the children or at the dentist’s, all help to move it towards completion.

I’ve also made a start on appliqueing down the largest fused fabric heart on my commission piece.  Gorgeous thick shaggy chenille-type thread hand dyed in the perfect range of turquoises and burgundy and couched down with slanting lines of my favourite matte aurora borealis delicas.

A nice steady job for a warm summer evening.

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Scissor case and bracelet

Both of our last two Embroiderers’ Guild meetings have been workshops and lovely ones at that. In April we had a talk by Brenda Scarman which was followed by her ‘Elizabethan embroidery’ workshop to make scissor cases with Tudor style embroidery.

The main rose motif was stitched in detached buttonhole stitch, which I have used in the past and really enjoy, so I was able to actually finish all the petals of my rose in the session.

It’s stitched in two strands of a lovely hand-dyed mercerised cotton, which felt quite unusually thick, but had great coverage.

The petals are outlined in chain stitch rather than the back stitch I’ve always used, which gives a much better finish as you have one side of the chain to stitch into and the other side gives a lovely even edging.

The tendrils are chain stitch in an ordinary stranded cotton. And I really must get it finished!

Then on Saturday we had a fantastic beading workshop by Gwen, one of our members, on how to make a St Petersburg chain for a bracelet. Gwen’s instructions were so good that I came in a little late, sat down and was able to work straight away from the sheets she had prepared.

It’s a lovely pattern to bead and so easy to drop into the rhythm and I was delighted to finish my bracelet in the session.

I have a weakness for iridescent beads and although the beads weren’t very evenly sized, these moonlight and evening sky coloured seed beads work so well together.

I even had time to start another chain with some much smaller delicas just to see what difference it made, if any, to use a better quality bead.

Not enough yet to tell, but I enjoyed it so much I’m already trying to work out how I can incorporate pieces of reticulated metal!

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Butterfly Oglala stitch rusting block

This is what happened to my ‘Nuts’ (The frosted AB delicas from the Darning Needle fans block) next!

I had a not very heavily rusted section of wide, flat seam and given the thickness of the fabric layers, it seemed like an ideal piece to work a line of Butterfly Oglala.

First I laid down my basic line of beads. I use a sort of back stitch technique where I pick up three beads, put the needle into the fabric at the end of where they lay, come up behind two of them and then stitch through those two again before picking up the next three. I’ve no idea where I got it from but it works for me.

Then the butterflying. I’ve used three beads. I come up through the first bead,  thread my three beads on for the frill, miss a bead and then put the needle through the next bead so the three beads are squashed up and stand away from the base line.

I used mostly the same beads, but in one or two places I made the middle of the three butterflying beads something different – a malachite chip or a copper seed bead, to give some visual interest.

Then I filled the background with seeding stitches in a wonderful hand dyed Caron cotton thread to echo the shades in the brown delicas and the hints of green malachite.

Oops, I need to carefully dab out the removable marker lines!

The blocks are starting to mount up now and I think I’ve finally worked out how to tackle my next one.

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