Beads

My sewing lately has been mending and trying to finish projects that have waiting WAY too long.  But I keep getting distracted by beads.

Here is a picture of a wall hanging I made for a friend. 

The fabric was pre-printed with 16 hearts in various patterns and colors of green, pink, peach. tan, and ecru.  I started by using embroidery floss and a stem stitch to enhance some of the vine-like patterns.  Variegated green floss and bullion stitch made a cute little rose and extended French knots made flowers to cover some icky colored dots.  White and green pearl cotton was couched over the grid pattern on two of the hearts.  And white floss made lazy daisy flowers to go with the white flower button and green French knots filled in the centers.

Then I put a layer of batting and muslin behind the fabric and started adding the beads and sequins.  See the pretty flower sequins in the lower left corner?  And I had a pink flower bead to add to them.  The ones that were the most fun to do were the 2 hearts that are totally covered in beads (they were ugly colors, so best to just hide them).  One has a white heart shaped bead in the center, green bugle beads and white and pink seed beads to fill the remainder of the area.  The one with the silver colored center was a plastic button.  I painted the embossed flowers on it with acrylic paint and then snapped off the shank and glued it to the fabric.

Here are close-up photos.

After the beading was done, I added my real backing fabric and hand quilted around each heart and along the grid lines that were already printed on the fabric.  Pink binding and it was done.  And done 4 days before her birthday - probably a record for me.

Now instead of making a purse for Designer Group III, I have been working on a beaded necklace inspired by Jenny Schu.  She came to talk to NTGM last week and brought many beautiful examples of her artwork.  Her techniques are wonderful, but her designs show what a true artist she is.  Gorgeous!!!