February 17th 2016: Beading Forever

Drum roll please! Persephone is finished!!

Design: Persephone by Mirabilia
Fabric: 32ct linen by Picture this Plus in their 'Rosewood' colourway
Other Materials: DMC cotton floss and Mill Hill beads as called for in the design

I finally finished beading on Saturday night after several marathon beading sessions throughout the week. The beads in the blackwork behind her were attached using the same charcoal coloured floss of the backstitch with a full cross. The first leg went through the bead and attached it the second split over top of the bead and 'hugged' the bead. This meant the charcoal thread shows around the bead which I liked the effect of in this instance. The other beads were attached using a double stand of YLI invisible thread half-cross. This stuff truly is invisible.

Two thoughts about the beads in this project:

1) The bugle beads which are the long ones are 9mm as called for in the chart. In the chart 4 squares/8 linen threads were left as a space for these but actually required at least 5 or 6 squares (10 or 12 linen threads) and I had to place them over top of stitching. Not too bothersome but if stitching again I would get the 6mm beads.

2) I don't like the bead work pattern in the dress. I think it would be much better to use metallic thread for that detail and have the dress flat, all the other beadwork is gorgeous, and the beadwork in the dress is too in isolation but as a project as a whole I think it's too clumsy and distracting. I had this thought after attaching the hundreds of beads in the dress but I wish I had thought of it sooner. I looked online and Kreinik has several metalic braids in the jade greens / silvers that would work as a replacement. Alternatively a really nice overdyed self patterning cotton or silk floss could work too.

Finally the blackwork pattern behind Persephone is called wallpaper in the design instructions. However throughout I have thought of it as an ironwork fence, and because of the colours in the design overall I have thought of her somewhere in the Caribbean, Florida or New Orleans. Weird huh?

I still have another Mirabilia to bead, but the knitting bug has been creeping up on me and so On Sunday I pulled out a scarf WIP:

Pattern: Banana Leaf Shawl by Yuki Ueda
Yarn: Malabrigo Lace in the Dusty Colourway

Photo from September 2015 when I had three mail deliveries in one day - score!

The lace is incredibly soft and squishy - I will use this again for other projects! I am enjoying this project because I don't mind the repetitiveness and enjoy the process of simply making a knitted fabric. I would also recommend this design to a beginner knitter as it's simply purl and knit with simple increases and decreases and will really help in learning how to 'read' knitting and also how to fix mistakes. Yeah it's lace but it's stitched on size 5 needles so not too small. It would also be good for a knitter that is learning how to knit a different way e.g continental style  etc and needs to get practice and tension right. However if you are an impatient knitter that gets bored easily - don't go near this one!

Cleo is as before. Not 100% but not critical either. Just trying to get her to eat and still waiting on blood tests.

To those who comment thank you so much! Recently I've just been wanting to get the posts up but I will be spending more time on blogland responding to comments and visiting others :)