More Beads!

It's strange and wonderful how a "happy accident" can change one's methods and techniques. When I was working on the PLAID book, and thought I had done everything I could do with beads, I was bored one day, and decided to work the weft bands of the plaid in beads of the same colors as the threads I was using. (see an earlier post on beads with needlepoint). To my amazement, the thing looked beaded solid - but actually much nicer, as the beads were placed only on the weft, so nestled down into the little dip - and the look wasn't cluttered and crowded as it had been when I had attempted using them on small spaces on Christmas projects, etc. Amazing!! The orange flower on green - the very gaudy piece - is "solid" (but isn't really), as is the pink fret and the little teal border. The backgrounds have the beads spaced a bit for added interest. I use this technique when basketweave would be boring, but textured stitches too much. It's actually very very easy and takes much less time than one would think (or I wouldn't do it, myself - I'm a bit lazy.) The little flower is another experiment with this "all over" method - but on the background I used only the Sundance #250 beads, which are crystal clear. By using cotton floss to apply them in the same colors as the patches, they have a kind of muted, frosty look - the colored thread shows through the beads. The flower was done all in white, green and yellow beads to make it stand out more from the background. As I have said many times, just playing around with this fun stuff and trying new things can lead to all kinds of great discoveries that add to and enhance our enjoyment of stitching needlepoint - or anything else.