Armillary Sphere - Lesson 3 & 4

I've been trying to be good and work on my Armillary Sphere at least once a week to try and get it moving along.

Lesson 3 is all about longitudes and latitudes. The longitudes are stitched on a curve to give roundness to the design. There is a some over and under, so we start with two curves only and start the latitudes.

For the tropics, we have the choice to either use pearl purl or do some s'ing with smooth purl. I went with the hard choice and did s'ing. It's really hard to keep a straight line, so this is where the transfer of the design is key. If it was done right, I should have a straight line. It doesn't look like it in this picture and stitching over all the metal threads I've already stitched is hard.

But I think once I surrounded the lines with peal purl it sort of straightens everything out. I hope.

Lesson 4 was very short. It's a lot of couching pearl purl and lizerine on curves. I'm really happy with how my outside circle came out. I wanted to avoid having bumps near the equator and tropics. To do that, I just made sure to end my stitches a few millimeters before the outside circle which leaves space for it.

With lesson 4, the base of the design is completed. For lesson 5, I need to recreate the band for the remaining zodiac signs. In lesson 6, the whole thing will be put together. I'm really looking forward to finishing it as it's starting to look nice.