Last night I worked a lot of background behind the wizard. I'm trying to get it stitched all around his bird companion so that I can finish the firebird at least. I did take a break and give the wizard a ring on the hand holding the globe. It just hit me while I was stitching miles of background that would be a nice touch.
I used a single black bead from Mill Hill's Magnifica line. Magnifica beads are highly faceted, so they sparkle more than the regular Mill Hill Petites. The facets mean they have flat sides, too, which means the bead sits flat against the wizard's finger. I stitched right through the bead's center twice with a length of DMC metallic thread that comes on a sewing spool. I think it is just called DMC Metallic but my label's come off the spool so all I can be sure of is that this is Or clair, which means light gold. The label says this is Art. 282. This thread is thin and stiff, thicker than blending filament by a bit. It is very shiny and two threads of it going through the bead middle looks like the band of a gold ring with a black stone. Remember those black onyx rings that men used to wear in the 1950s-1960s? Most of them have something cut into the black stone so I took one ply from a skein of DMC's metallic floss that is pewter colored. (#5287). I laid it right across the bead perpendicular to the two gold threads that went through the bead's middle to give the black a little shading like there was something on the stone. I like how it turned out myself. It adds a little something to the wizard's personality using just two threads and a bead. Easy enough to do, particularly when you have a nice stash of threads and beads to choose just the right colors from.
I love you, Stash!
Can't see the ring well? Try the photo on the main blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
