I have another go at Embroidery

For most of this year I have hardly done any beading. No desire at all and surprisingly I didn't miss it.

I was concerned for awhile as normally I wake early and spend 3-4 hours a day experimenting. 

I just didn't have the verve for it. My focus had shifted elsewhere. 

Six months into the year I was thinking maybe I should try my hand at embroidery.

You see I am inspired by the two 'Reginas' - Regina Krawets and Regina Payne.

Having bead embroidered once before I was beginning to think doing another might 'kick-start' 

my beading desire again, problem was I didn't know what I wanted to embroider. 

When you have a blank canvas in front of you the possibilities are enormous AND very daunting. 

So not knowing what I wanted to create, I created nothing - until last month.

I am a member of the Macarthur Bead Society. We meet every third Saturday of the month and each meeting the facilitator - Neva Brown - comes up with a Bead Challenge. 

The challenge for the June bead meeting was "POP Art"

I immediately thought of Andy Warhol, Campbell Soup tins, Wham! Bam! Kapow! etc etc.

I had my embroidery subject, I would try to embroider a "POW !"

That wouldn't be too hard and hopefully would be good fun.

I start by creating the letters in a cubic right angle weave (CRAW) and decided to include an oval Lunasoft cabachon for the letter 'O'. That gave me the size of the lettering. 

  

Whilst making the challenge my thoughts went to "what will I do with this when finished?"

Can I make this into a necklace - isn't there enough jewellery.

I could sew it to a baseball cap - I would never wear it.

I could sew it on a denim jacket - I am too old to wear a 'noisy' kind of jacket.

I could give it to a grand niece of mine to sew on clothing for her young daughter - hmmm......the embroidery would eventually be thrown away. I didn't like that idea!

So, here you have my finished embroidery. 

I glued the work to one of the bead boards I use when travelling. Now I get to see and enjoy it.

The embroidery is a bit 'rough' in my opinion.
I used some beads I wanted to get rid of, and they were not all that even. Some of the beads sit up higher - that may be over-crowding the beads or my tension.
When glueing down the 'O' ring around the cabochon, the CRAW twisted a little so I wasn't able to further surround the cab.

I have three friends who embroider and they have critiqued the workmanship and made suggestions on what to do next time. All things I will keep in mind for future. 

 I learnt a lot from doing this piece and shall do more in future.  

I like the idea of combining bead-weaving and bead embroidery.

Has it kick-started my beading again??  Yes it has.