Remember Jane’s Law for Christmas Needlepoint? It states one must use metallics, beads, sequins, fake jewels, anything glittery you can find on Christmas piece so your finished needlepoint will be able to compete with the Christmas tree lights and other ornaments. So our little ornament needed beads, and since I also needed to hide the seam where the ornament’s needlepointed front meets the backside’s fabric, why not bead there also? And since we are going way overboard (Jane’s Law!!!), why not add a beaded fringe to hang from the bottom? It is obvious that this little Santa doesn’t want anyone overlooking him come Christmas!
I already had a Swarovski-type crystal from Mill Hill to attach to his front and had chosen a variety of blue beads for him, so all I needed to do is make some decisions as to how to bead all the parts--the hanging loop, the edges and the fringe at the bottom. But first, let’s talk about the beads I added on top of the needlepoint before I put the ornament together.
Mill Hill sells crystals in various shapes and colors--snowflakes, hearts, flowers, drops, etc. I bought a package of three little blue round flower shapes and I wanted to use one on our wizard. There were several potential places to put it--on his pony tail clasp that holds his beard in check, on his robe, or on his hat. I just laid the crystal here and there and decided it looked best on his wizard’s hat.
There are a ton of beading websites which are helpful when you are deciding how to do simple things to your NP. (Any beaders out there? Got tips on good tutorials? And what are doubling back and bumper beads really called?) The techniques they teach you really will come in handy doing various things but for now, all we are going to talk about is doubling back and bumpers. The crystal has a hole in the middle, so there are two ways of securing it to the hat. I could come up in the middle repeatedly and then go down around the shape and hold it fast that way. But my middle hole isn’t very large and I was pretty sure I could only put the needle through it three times. So I used the doubling back/bumper technique. (Refer to the image above.)
This means I knotted my thread, came up through the hat in the center of the area where I wanted the crystal to be, put the needle through the middle of the crystal and pushed the crystal down to rest on the canvas. I checked the placement, just to make sure I got it right and threaded a tiny Mill Hill bead on the needle. Now I had the crystal on top of the canvas and the much smaller Petite Bead on top. Think stacking pancakes, ok? Needlepoint, large crystal, small bead. I simply took the needle and put it back through the crystal and then through the canvas again. This turns the little bead so that it lies on its side. The thread goes through the NP canvas and the crystal and the smaller bead, then makes a U turn, plunging through the crystal only back to the back side of my NP where I secured it. The small bead keeps the crystal in place securely, acting as a bumper. The trick is to find a bead just a little larger than the hole in the bead or crystal you want to attach. That way it holds the larger piece without any danger of being pulled back through the larger item’s hole. And a small bead doesn’t show much. Look for it in tomorrow’s photo and see if you can see it on top of the crystal.
Remember the doubling back/bumper stuff. I’m going to use the same steps to make the fringe for the bottom of this piece.This is getting quite long, so let’s take a break here. More tomorrow!
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