I tried out stringing a number of beads at once, then draping them on the shape, and anchoring between each bead. This worked nicely to get a flow going on the soft felt background, and was good experience in gauging how many beads was enough for the space.
I liked doing the shading -- several different colors of bead, from greenish gold to amber -- very much like shading with thread. Because I used gold thread throughout, there was no problem in hiding the thread. It either sank into the felt or just blended with the beads.
Felt is both difficult and forgiving to work with. Difficult because it tends to shift and change shape as you work, moving the beads unexpectedly, so you have to allow for that. Forgiving because the needle slides through so sweetly, and you can pass thread at the back under the top layer, to hide it and avoid snagging it in use.
Anyway, this was a good project, small enough not to intimidate me at this point. And now it's done and I have a handy needle case instead of scrabbling through a cigar box of needles and a pill container which let you see but not retrieve needles, gah.
When I get up for it, I may replace the inner pages with something more like felt, which I didn't have at the time. Perhaps I'll cut more red felt and use that for pages. I'm getting over my dislike of red, I see. Speaking of which, the upper pic is closer to the true red of the felt. No idea why it turned pink on the second one.
Click to see better.
very pretty and like you said the technique of stringing the beads then attaching has worked very well
ReplyDeleteEnjoy following the story.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a needlecase worthy of only the BEST needles!
ReplyDeleteThat has turned out very nicely. Not sure what you've used for pages but a bit of flannel is always a good one. Just pink the edges.
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