Sunday, November 14, 2010

FROM PAPER TO BEADS

As I mentioned last week, my inventory of bead embellished wool quilts has shrunk. I'm delighted so many have found new homes......so now it's time to create more. Hey, that's no hardship, I LOVE working with woolfelt, in fact, I can't seem to stop!

This is the layout of one I started last week. My style leans towards simple, less cluttered design elements and I was pleased with the general look of this one.

After adding machine stitching provide texture to the branches, I moved onto beading the bird. With two rows of beading in place, I've become alarmed that it's going to overpower the simplicity of the piece.

Why? It looked so good on paper.....and double checking the size.....yup, it's still the same. So, what wrong? I suspect it's because the 3 cut beads I'm using are very reflective, making the image appear much more noticeable/larger than it is.

Before I do anything drastic, I needed to study it a little more. I put the piece back on my design wall and positioned some of the red circles to determine whether it was the starkness of the beads/fabric without the circles that bothered me.... I'm trying to envision the bird completely beaded and am now convinced I need to redo it.

So, the next decision...... (a.) do I make the bird smaller or (b.) do I use forgo using these wonderful shiny beads and use matte beads instead. Stay tuned.....

2 comments:

Robbie said...

Hmmmm guess I don't see where the bird/beads are going to be overpowering to the rest of the piece. It's quite simple and a very clean, nice piece.

The Inside Stori said...

Tx's Robbie....I just have a feeling that by the time I fill in the entire shape of the bird.....it will overwhelm the rest of the motifs. These 3-cut beads are VERY shiny. I'm thinking I may be better of taking out 2 rows of beads now, rather than the whole thing later if my instincts turn out to be right. Maybe I'll live with it another day and see how I feel then.