A Little Help for My Friend

Last week my cyber stitching friend, Diane, commented that she is stitching along with me on Kelly Clark's Witches' Hats apple and also on &more's "boo". She was trying to figure out how to bead the bow accents on the apple and asked if I would take some pictures of how I tackled that part of the canvas. Diane, it's really very easy - as you will see.

I gathered all of my materials together - beads, wire, and a little double sided tape for the beads. I was unable to find the black 28 gauge artists wire that was suggested so I had to go with a dark copper wire of the same gauge. The color didn't matter too much in the end as none of it showed. I cut about a 10" length of wire as Amy told us to do. The next step is to bring a length of wire from behind the canvas up to the front.

Bring one end of the wire up from the back on one side of the base of the bow knot and the other end of the wire up from the back and on the other side of the base of the bow knot. The wire is thin so it's a little difficult to see in the photo, but I think you'll get the idea. After both ends of the wire are on the front of the canvas just slide them back and forth until you have an even length on each side of the knot. Then comes the easy part - just add your beads in any pattern you choose.

Once you have added the appropriate number of beads for each piece of wire, you take the end of the wire on each side and sink it into the top part of the knot. After checking that you have added enough beads (or perhaps need to take away a few beads), you will want to secure the wired beads on the back of the canvas by twisting the wire together.

The other pieces of beaded wire are handled just the same way. For the upper areas of the bow, I brought the wires up from underneath the outside edges of the bow and sank them on the inner areas of the bow near the knot.

Twist the wires together on the back side of the canvas just as you did with the knot wires. Once I finished all of the beading, I took a piece of black beading thread and tacked down the wires so that I had them secured to the canvas and had the wire shaped like I wanted it. The picture below was before I tacked down the wires.

Diane, I hope this helped you. I can't guarantee that this is exactly the method that Amy had in mind in her stitch guide but I got the job done and I am pleased with the results. I appreciate Robin taking the time to remind me of the photos of the apple canvas in the March issue of Amy's newsletter.  The beaded wire really adds a wonderful finishing touch to this fun Halloween canvas. I'm sorry to finish it! But, I know where I can get more when I want them!

I completed the two white stripes on "boo" that have the jack-o-lantern darning pattern. What a great pattern, don't you think?

I photographed "boo" Saturday morning, but last night while I watched the Georgia-Boise State game, I almost completed the orange stripe on the end. I'll use a Fyre Works coppery color to stitch the strap stitches over the Scotch stitches.

Continuing with the Halloween theme, I can't remember if I told you last week that Dr. Acula and W.Herr Wolfe have safely arrived in San Francisco for their visit with Marlene. Hopefully they will come home in time for the gathering of the the Halloweenie family in October. I think there's a good chance that they will.

It's a quiet Labor Day weekend around my house. Perfect for some concentrated stitching I think. Hope your holiday weekend is everything you want it to be!