We did it!!

It has been a bit of a journey, but I think we can post pictures.  I have been working on a small hanging, using a piece of hand dyed fabric that I just love.  The first picture is of the assembled hanging.

Then it had to be quilted. Looking at it, I see beige, red, and spots of blue, but when it came time to match thread, I ended up with a clear celadon green--perfect. But matching means that the only way to see the quilting, which took a week of hard work, is from the back.  I used the swirls, that I like, and the empty spaces left room for a bit of thought about negative space, which ended up being the parallel lines that I've used before.

Then came the beading.  Before I could start, I spent almost a month, and losts of $$$, looking for the right beads, every bead store in Winnipeg, and even as far away as Fargo.

 

Here are the principal beads positioned. The blue are very nice Lapis Lazuli.  As well, I used antique jade, but while the rest are, for the most part, good quality glass beads, they are only really filler beads. There are even a few acrylic beads, used where I felt I needed either a more interesting shape, or a different value of colour.

 

Here I've been adding the filler beads, and even found a couple of strange things that look like red beans, but work well with this piece.  You'll notice that I use a Q-Snap set, and position the work area over open space, so that I can work with two hands.

 

Here is the finished view, and below is a close-up of the finished beading. The colour doesn't show well, and much of what looks like bright red, is really more of a deep cherry red.  But some of it really is bright red, with metallic gold highlights. Deciding when enough was enough, was difficult, but, since I wanted to highlight the beauty I saw in the dyed fabric, in this case, I felt that "less is more".

And what of the hat, you ask?  Well, there has been little progess, but I've been using steam and heat , in an effort to re-mold the brim--un-successfully.  Here it is, beside the armature I spoke of.  The armature is made of buckram.