Friday, July 24, 2009

Bead Embroidery Is My Thing

In my last post, I said I thought my bead embroidered necklace would take a couple of weeks to complete. I forgot to factor in my obsession with fun projects when I made that estimate! I finished the necklace at 1 AM this morning and I'm extremely happy with it.

My beautiful friend, Cissa, as model


When I left off at the end of Tuesday's post, I had just decided to embroider the entire piece, not just a centerpiece. I finished that part Wednesday night and went to bed knowing that I'd be doing the finishing work the next day. I hardly slept - I was that excited.



First thing: glue on the backing fabric to cover up all the threads.



This was dry in about 20 minutes - not long at all.

The next order of business was to brick stitch beads one at a time around the edge to attach the edges together. It also makes a nicely finished edge.



As the final step, I encased another muscovite oval bead and attached two hooks to the necklace. One hook is permanently closed, while the other acts as the clasp.



A view of the underside - all the messy threads are nicely hidden.





I love the idea of a focal point at the back. I mean, you want people to be sorry when you leave a room, but you want them to enjoy the view as you go, right?

The entire project, start-to-finish took a whopping 31 hours. And I loved every minute of it!

Click here for purchasing info for this very special necklace...

9 comments:

lori vliegen said...

oh kate....i hope you realize how inspired i am by your beautiful project....and mostly by your total enthusiasm about creating it! i just love it when i'm so excited about art that i can't sleep! i can tell by the photos that your craftsmanship goes way above the normal standards! please promise me that you'll submit this to one (or ALL) of the beading magazines....it deserves lots and lots of attention! congrats on 31 hours of time that was very well-spent! hugs, :)

Snap said...

Stunning, Kate. Just stunning! WOW

3rdEyeMuse said...

that you loved every minute shows in the exquisite detail ... wow.

Dee said...

what a beautiful piece! I envy your talent. The finished piece looks wonderful on as well...fabulous job!

rochambeau said...

Oh man, you blow my mind Kate. You work fast and with creative precision!
This is a FABULOUS necklace!
BRAVO
xox
Constance

Unknown said...

That is beautiful! It seems like it just fell out of your hands!

Christie Minchew said...

Wow! Your obsession will be someone else's absolute delight someday. Love it!

Karen Cole said...

WOW.....L-O-V-E it!!!!

Unknown said...

I was drawn to this one...I used to do bead embroidery years past. I appreciate the work and understand the draw to this.

if I can dig up some old slide images I'll share them :)

x..x