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Saturday, December 22, 2007

Great Balls of Fire part 5

Since break started I have been hard at work trying to finish my fire ball necklace. I have finished the bead embroidery part...finally! Now I just have to finish it. I glued a black Tandy leather back on with E6000 and now I am in the process of stitching the two sides more securely together with black seed beads (the same time I used for the chain part) in a modified brick stitch. I actually had to wrap a scrap of leather around my finger so I could push the needle though the leather. I was actually starting to use the table instead of my fingers for this task because I had started to push the needle though my finger...instead of the leather, then along came the idea of wrapping my finger in leather! Work has gone a lot faster after that light bulb moment.
I also took a day off in frustration. See, my inspiration for bead embroidery came from the Fire Mountain Gems Website (FMG) and their Bead Embroidered Cuff bracelet. Keep in mind, when I started this project many many many months ago...FMG also had a whole set of videos that you could view to help you along with certain projects. These videos were actually clips of some show that actually used to be on the local public television channel around there. They helped tremendously when I first started, because I learn the best from watching. I watch this video back then thinking, that when I got to the next step I could just refer back to it for more help. Well, man was I wrong. Not only are NONE of the videos up any more, the instructions they have make zero sense to me. I did have some foresight and printed off the directions back when I started (they had the written instructions available as well). Apparently, they decided to take off the pictures that went with every step and only include a handful and stop at step 11...I need help on steps 14 on!!! The written isntructions make no sense...like what side of the backing are you stitching from? That would help... So basically I had to go back to the stuff I had printed off from before, which had stills from the video (thank God!) and figure it out from there. I think I did...they basically used a modified brick stitch. I was pulling my hair out before I sat down and figured it out. I didnt want to ruin this piece that I have worked on for months just because FMG decided to be poop heads and pull the videos off from their website. So far everything else is going along well...except for the time I tried to trim some leather and accidentally sniped my thread. That was a bit hairy. Now I just have to finish the edging and connect the embroidery to the more "necklace" part then attach the clasp. I am so close I can almost taste it!! mmmmm beads.....

1 comment:

phrannie said...

i think this baby is going fabulously!! where you find the patience is one of my universal mysteries!

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