More Pretty Things: Beads with Mindy (Working Again)

Working on the Mindy canvases again, this time the "#3" as I call it. After a lot of relaxing and mindless outlining in preparation for adding color, I decided it was time to do beads on the flowers, and started with the purple one.

It had to be outlined first, of course, and then the skipped basketweave worked in the three lighter shades. As always, the basketweave stitches were placed on the warp threads (the bumps), leaving the dips of the weft threads for the beads to nestle down and not wobble on top of the work.

Again, I'm using totally DMC cotton floss for this, so stitched the background of the flower with the same floss I used to attach the beads. It's absolutely amazing how well the clear beads work on a project of this sort. You can see the shading, due to using the colored floss of each area. As I worked, my mind was racing ahead to how well this effect would look on an evening bag - or even a tree ornament in brighter colors on a different shape!


I went ahead and worked a little bit of the pink diaper pattern at the top of the flower, as I wanted to see what it would look like filled in. This is what keeps a project of this sort from ever being boring. Always a new area to explore and develop.

Now I'm wanting to move back to something a bit simpler, and being tired of the beads for right now, I'm looking at the lower left corner with the delightful shaded greens. I'm thinking it might be nice in plain upright stitches. This is another great thing about working with the floss - it's so versatile that I have these options, and can stay in the same family of surface texture. This is important in a painted canvas this "busy" already in pattern and color.


After working on the green area for a little while, I think it's time go get back to "Mindy II," which is the soft colored Art Nouveau canvas - delightful and relaxing with pleasant colors and plenty of simple basketweave. A change is always nice!