I think it has been two months since I have shown you progress on my crewel work project, how time flies. I have this evening finished the first motif – well I still have some beads to add to the two tendrils to finish them but I am waiting on a delivery of beads.
I hadn’t really taken on board how many beads there are in the project. If you look at this close up (sorry I struggled to get it in focus) you can see the range and number of beads. You can also see my irregular stitches and slightly wonky shapes. I did spend some time beating myself up about this as it isn’t perfect.
However I have reminded myself that I haven’t done bead-work before or even many of the crewel work stitches; plus the pattern didn’t transfer very well so I am having to draw in some of it which has upset me. I also have been reminding myself that the pictures above are blown up and few people’s eyesight would be able to see all my imperfections. It reminds me of when I did botanical illustration where you are peering closely at your work thinking this is rubbish but then you stand up and step back and actually from a normal viewing distance it looks alright.
So I am off to start the next motif now which is a sort of pomegranate and starts with instructions for a stitch I have no idea about! This motif only has 1 page of instructions unlike the one I have just finished which had 4 so should be simple – I doubt it! The pencil in the photo above indicates the left hand end of the overall design and it goes as far the other way so you can see how much I have to do.
I am enjoying it though as you can break it down into small elements which in themselves are satisfying to complete.