Here's my Phase III Japanese bead embroidery project. It's taken 18 months to complete because it has been very much a background project while I concentrated on Japanese embroidery. As is often the way, I have focused on getting it finished because I wanted the frame for another project.
The first side was mostly completed last year. I tried to follow the JEC photo as closely as possible with the use of clear beads for highlights.
When it came to the second side I decided to use all red beads for the flowers and use the clear beads to show the leaves disappearing behind the petals. I'm not sure it altogether works and I think the shades of red supplied with the kit are a little too close to get a real degree of shading. The shading is really achieved with the padding which is the real star of the show for this piece.
Here's a couple of close-up shots which show the padding a little better.
I demonstrated at a couple of shows with this piece. Quite a few people said "How can you see to sew black beads on black fabric" but the most memorable comment was "Oh that pink blob in the centre is beads!" It wasn't meant as an insult, just must have the first thing that popped into the lady's mind. She stayed for a longer chat afterwards and did say some nice things afterwards.
