Couching Around and Around

Last week, I started couching the passing for the body. I still had a few rows left.

Once I got into the rhythm of couching, the last few rows finished very quickly. At this point I needed to make a decision: plunge what I've done before couching the rest or leaving it for now. I decided to leave it. I wanted to get the curve just right when I plunged these first few rows. The reason is because the next step on the body is couching in the round. To help get the angle just right, I took a pen and sketched out how I imagined the curve should look.

Becky Hogg's instructions said to cut out a 120 cm piece of passing that gets folded in half. Now that piece even folded was really long. When I started couching, I could never imaging running out. However as I got closer and closer to the center, I started to sweat. My passing was getting shorter with no end in sight. I started trying to remember if I ever read/heard of what to do if you run out of metal thread to couch before you reach the center. What do you do if you underestimate the length? Definitely something I will be asking in the future.

Becky's instructions are pretty good. I have exactly the same amount of circles as she does and the amount of passing I needed was spot on.

I like how the back looks. Doesn't it look like fur? The head looks like it has Shirley Temple's hair :P

I didn't go further than cleaning up all the passing. I'm going to try and work on it again tonight. I saved a few pieces of passing that are long enough to fold in half that could fit the really tiny spaces.

Friday I cam home to find that my copy of Inspirations finally came in. We had two holidays one after the other, meaning Canada Post was closed so post was a little late.

I was really eager to get my copy because there was a Japanese bead embroidery project by Margaret Lee in it. This project was a class that Margaret taught at Beat Around the Bush last year. I'm so happy I don't have to go all the way to Australia to do it. It's finished off as a lovely case for you stitching tools.

I've already started looking into gathering the beads, but it's very hard finding some of them. They're all TOHO beads and there are 3-cut beads again. It seems like it's a favorite kind of bead to use. Also impossible to find in North America. Last time I replaced them with Czech beads. So I will either make adjustments keeping to the same colors or change the colors to suite my tastes. I haven't decided yet, but I spent Saturday doing some adult coloring to figure out where each bead is used.

And look! At the back of the issue there is an advertisement for Margaret Lee's new book on bead embroidery. I've already placed my order at Book Depository for it. The site says it's available but the publication date for the book isn't until July 27. So that means I will have to wait till next month to get it. After getting a peek at the inside of the book I think it will be well worth the wait.