Pearl Butterfly Lesson 4

Because lesson 3 was so short, Alison was kind enough to release the final lesson for Pearl Butterfly a week ahead of time. And there is LOTS to do!

Before jumping into it, here is a picture of Pearl Butterfly in the sun. Saturday morning we had such great lighting :) I can't get over how beautiful these colors look together under the natural light.

My butterfly finally got a head and antennas. The antennas are Gilt Super Pearl Purl which is very similar to the Gilt Pearl Purl #2 I had used to stitch the wings outline.

The next step was the thorax of the butterfly, but I decided to skip to the S'ing. I got to play with Gilt Rough Purl. It's very slinky and slippery.

I had to cut a whole lot of these tiny purls. These are 5mm, so small! It was very hard not to tense up every time I cut them. I can't tell you how many times I had to force myself to relax my shoulders from my neck lol. These will be threaded onto the needle and used like beads.

But before that I had to fix some bead spacing issues. I noticed that one of the rows of pearls in the upper right wing wasn't correctly centered, so I snipped them out and restitched them.

If I hadn't done that there would have been a really big yellow space between the S'ing and white silk. This second time around is much better :)

S'ing is fun once you get into a nice rhythm. Just make sure you cut enough rough purl so you don't get interrupted.

From this point forward, I lost the light :( So pictures are much darker, but you can still see the S'ing is completed. I decided not to cut off my thread since I have to work in those areas anyways. Don't worry, I made sure to make two small stitches to finish that area off ;)

So far Goldwork seems very easy. Until you get to this particular technique in goldwork: cutting lengths to the right size and applying them like beads. For this part we're using the Bright Check Purl but different kinds of metals can be used.

I found this part hard. The check purl couldn't be too long because then you will have a bridge, too short and you'll have a gap on one side. I'm still not 100% happy with it (I'm talking about the third purl from the bottom), but it will do. The great thing about using check purl is any bits that weren't good enough I could use for this next part.

Chipping! This is the part I've been looking forward to the most. It's basically seed beading and instead of stitching with beads we're using check purl. By the time I got to this part, I could only do this small section as it was getting late. I stitched on this piece ALL day! I didn't feel the time pass.

The next time you'll see Pearl Butterfly, it will most likely be finished. All that's left is the chipping and one final technique before it will be all over and I'll have to move onto another project. I'm already looking into my next goldwork project. I want to make a trio of goldwork to hang in the living room. So far I have my choices narrowed down to a flower and a landscape. I already got the kit for the flower, just have to get fabric for it.