I didn't do a lick of stitching yesterday. Not one stitch! My excuse was the blizzard bearing down on us. I had squeeze in all the weekend chores like grocery shopping, the special chores like filling the wood closet and finishing Christmas shopping, and the occasional chores like seeing that the bird feeder was full and the propane lantern and kerosene lamps ready yesterday. When a snowstorm is about to hit, stitching is left behind in the rush to get ready, particularly here in CH where I have to be certain that we have enough food, wood, and water to get through a storm that is predicted to dump 16-24 inches of snow on top of us. If the power goes out, it'll be out for a while. No electricity means no running water, no heat, no Internet and no television. Sometimes it means no phones, too. I don't anticipate that we will lose power (the 6 inches we have right now is the dry, light snow that will blow around like crazy in the high winds that are predicted but it doesn't take down the power lines) but I have to be ready in case I'm wrong. The photo above, by the way, is out the basement French doors two hours ago. At that point we had 4-6 inches. I took the photo when checking on the fire in the woodstove.
But the blizzard planning is over and although I am a bit sore (and likely to be more so after shoveling a foot or two of snow!), I am about ready to sit down and stitch most of the day. I want to attach most of the beads to O'jishi in the little bead cups I stitched for them before I continue adding backstitches and whipped backstitches to the design. I know that beads are normally the last thing to be added since your threads in your needle catches on them but I want to know exactly where the beads are as I add backstitches very close to them.
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The first step is deciding what color of beads to use. I attached several different colors and types earlier this week. The photo is above. The three clusters of beads on the left are all yellow Toho beads (size 11/0), then there is a Sundance round gold bead cluster, with a MillHill Magnifica hex faceted gold bead cluster, and finally a clear Sundance bead attached with gold silk.
As you can see, the gold beads show up better. I'm probably going with the Magnifica beads as they have a bit more sparkle, but I may toss in a few yellow beads in places where there are just a dot to indicate a bump, especially on his nose. Those areas I didn't cover with baby bead cups. A single bead will do well there, especially one that is yellow and will blend in with the gold silk background.
I may add some large crystal beads (not shown in the photo) but I doubt it. We'll see how this plays out. There is no reason I can't put more than one bead in a baby bead cup or mix colors or have one color here and another there, after all!
Everyone stay safe in the blizzard!
Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
Blogging at http://chillyhollownp.blogspot.com
Archived Yahoo 360 postings at http://profiles.yahoo.com/chillyhollow
5 comments:
Beads! Woohoo! Looks good! Stay safe and I will keep my fingers crossed that you won't lose power!
Hi Jane, this is lovely, very striking. Looking forward to seeing more.
Thanks for your comment on my inro. I enjoyed the process and the piece. We have snow here in NW England, but no where near as much as you have. Keep warm and happy stitching, jane
Anxious to hear how much snow you received. Checking to make sure you are safe & warm.
We are fine, Robin! We are used to being cut off with no services here in the rural areas (65 miles to the White House but it might as well be on the moon).
I think we got around 24 inches of snow. Shoveling starts later this morning (groan).
Hey, Jane (lovely name you have there). Loved your Japanese Embroidery version of an inro. You did a great job with it, although I do enjoy watching all your stitching. I just have a special fondness for inros and for original designs. My friend Liz in London got about 3 inches of snow I think. It looks like we got around 24 inches to me but I haven't measured it. Knee-high snow, anyway.
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