Bad news and then some good news

The  reliquary is coming along, but not without its's problems.  For some reason I chose to start with the fuchsia pink, and using a silver metallic. I chose one of the shapes from the book, but altered the proportions and size, drafting my own pattern.  My original vision involved white and silver, but most of the beads I could find were more toward raspberry, so we added that.  I was trying to find some sort of theme, and the darn piece kept refusing to cooperate. After several days of anger and frustration, I went back to that old design guideline--If nothing seems to be working get rid of your very favourite component.  So I agreed to try gold metallic instead of silver.  The piece was ecstatic!  Ah, but which gold?  Do you have any idea how many golds there are?  After some experimentation, I went with Lumiere Halo Pink paint.  Dry brushed a little on the the base--ho hum.  So I painted some onto a crumpled up paper bag, and added appliqued (fused) shapes to the piece.  A little better, but not really satisfying to any extent.  So could I find some raspberry metallic to applique the shapes to the piece?  Oh Joy!  I found some.  I quickly did the machine applique, and went to bed happy.

Next morning, in day light, I realized that the Raspberry metallic, did not read as raspberry when used, but rather read as purple. Oh darn!  ( Not really what I said.  Use your imagination)  How can I save this?  Back to the stash, where I found some purple silk.  What the heck?!  I can't make it any worse.  Well, I did.

At this point I was ready to throw in the towel.  But, could I really  throw away all this time and supplies?  Why not use the piece to experiment with various techniques, before moving onto a new project (  Remember?  I had three other colourways  ready to go.)  So I relaxed, and let loose, and allowed myself to play.  First I did a small scale random FMQ'g all over the base layer with gold metallic--great results.  Then I added machine couched Japanese gold around the appliques. (Yes, real Japanese gold) Next I added custom-made braid along the edge of each of the five sides, and a similar braid along the bottom.  Here is a close-up of the piece, that shows detail of the FMQ'g and the braid.

Here is the full view of the result, all the machine sewing done, ready for beading.  I am pleasantly surprised at the result, and plan to finish it as originally planned.  I'll post more pictures once the beading and hand stitching is done.

I plan to link this with The Needle and Thread Network and Nina Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday.