An Embroidery Refresher

This past Saturday I took a refresher beading course with a local talented header and teacher, Eileen Neill (Qualicum Beach, BC).  It was a fantastic day, so much fun.  We learned how to do some basic outline stitches (lazy stitch and couching stitch), three kinds of picot edging stitches, some fancy stitches (like spider web), all kinds of fringe, and the lacy netting stitch.

The sampler we made is about 4.5" square.  I took pictures of some samples that Eileen Neill made:  (Our homework was to make the base fabric square, ready for beading).

Here is my finished piece which I am calling "Fantasy Garden Delight":

Eileen Neill also teaches peyote work.  She has done a lot of pieces with Tyvek and burning techniques which produces interesting work.  Beading is such fun and if I were not so busy making dolls, I would surely be a beader!

Here are some of Eileen's "burned" pieces:

The face has been stamped, tyvek, burning and beading plus metallic paint

This uses a face mold, tyvek, burning with heat gun.

This is made by using a plastic bag (frozen berries) and using the heat gun before sewing with netting.

Eileen does not teach the burning technique as it emits fumes indoors and must be done in open air.  Here are three final beaded squares all made by Eileen:  Notice that on all the squares the base fabric is batiks as they have interesting colour combinations and are a nice tight weave.  Eileen uses doubled "Coats Dual Duty" hand quilting thread, treated with beeswax (to strengthen) followed by Thread Magic (to lubricate) for the beading thread.  This thread does not fray like Nymo does when beading cloth.  This class was originally developed for quilters that wanted to incorporate beading into their quilts but works equally well for doll makers.