We had a horrible, depressing weekend here in Montreal, but because of it I was able to get a lot done. After my post on Friday, I went home for lunch (hurray for summer hours!) and then proceeded to work on Hana for the rest of the day.
The second part of the flowers are the petals. They're stitched in three layers by coming out a little outside the petal area, threading a combination of two bead sizes 11/0 and 15/0 and then plunging the thread underneath the center. You basically want enough beads on there and just the right length of thread, that once the needle is brought back into the fabric, the beads form an arc.
You don't want a really high arc because otherwise you won't be able to see all the beads and the fabric will show. It's very tricky. If you come out of the fabric too far, when you plunge that needle the beads will lay flat. If you do it too near the center it will look weird. And in some cases you have to use your judgment on whether you want to keep a bead or take it out.
Once you do the center petal (at the top), a trick I found for the outer petals was do the center layer first, then do the outermost layer and finish by squeezing in that last one. They mentioned using a tekobari (or laying tool) for this, but I just found it very awkward. I think I ended up using a bigger needle just to push the layers so I can see around them.
The second part of the flowers are the petals. They're stitched in three layers by coming out a little outside the petal area, threading a combination of two bead sizes 11/0 and 15/0 and then plunging the thread underneath the center. You basically want enough beads on there and just the right length of thread, that once the needle is brought back into the fabric, the beads form an arc.
You don't want a really high arc because otherwise you won't be able to see all the beads and the fabric will show. It's very tricky. If you come out of the fabric too far, when you plunge that needle the beads will lay flat. If you do it too near the center it will look weird. And in some cases you have to use your judgment on whether you want to keep a bead or take it out.
Once you do the center petal (at the top), a trick I found for the outer petals was do the center layer first, then do the outermost layer and finish by squeezing in that last one. They mentioned using a tekobari (or laying tool) for this, but I just found it very awkward. I think I ended up using a bigger needle just to push the layers so I can see around them.
I do admit that some of the petals look better than others, but that's okay it still looks pretty. I just love how shiny it is and the colors that were picked for this project are lovely. I particularly like the blue and fuchsia.
Next step for Hana are the stems but I'm not sure when that will happen as the weather is supposed to be great this week so my time will be spent outside.
SO pretty! And I didn't realise how shiny it would look.
ReplyDeleteI am Loving this project! It's so much fun seeing it all come together and it's making me want to start bead embellishing fabric too!
ReplyDeleteIt may be tricky, but worth the effort, I think!
ReplyDeleteIt's beautiful and i agree with Jo, it's making me want to bead printed fabric too!
ReplyDelete