Leslie's Motif finished at last!

I know this motif has seemed to consume me for weeks and it is the only thing I have been blogging about but it is done now at last! I promise this is the last time you have to look at it! The third ornament I made (farthest to the right) has for it's center a little petit point rose that was on a stick pin. I attached it with blue beads after removing the pin part and then with the gold beads I built a snowflake around it. The outside of the ornament was done in a gold and blue bead mix and then blue beads scattered inside that. This one is my favourite, likely because I love scavenging petit point jewelry and using it in crazy quilting.

With the three ornaments in place I used this week's BAS challenge stitch (Beaded Backstitch) to make strings to hang the ornaments. (Stop staring at the wonky heart! I see you looking! lol ) It was my original intent that the tops of the ornaments would be gloriously festooned with leaves and beads - very over the top. Sorry Leslie - you only get one leaf!

The leaf was made with a lot of blood, sweat and tears because my trailer stash is severely limited. I abandoned the instructions I was using immediately when it asked for an obscure interfacing to build the leaf on. Humph - interfacing in the stash? Not likely! Aha! But I do have a plastic tablecloth with a fuzzy backing! So, inside the leaf is buried a piece of tackly blue plastic tablecloth. Needed 30 gauge wire but only had beading wire which is really too light. But I hopefully couched it down anyway. Next came a row of small close buttonhole stitch over the couched wire and extending very slightly past it. Then a row of low and short stitch in silk ribbon all around the leaf, the end portion of each stitch slipping between the wire and the buttonhole stitch. Clear as mud? The rest of the leaf was covered in more long and short stitch in silk ribbon. I think this is the point where I abandoned the notion of the leaf being reversible. I used gold blending filiment to make some lines on the leaf and then beaded some veins. The moment of truth came then when I had to cut away the excess tablecloth. Seemed to work! I beaded around the outside of the leaf using whipstitch with three beads on each stitch. I threaded the wire ends through to the back of the fabric and secured them and tacked the leaf down in a couple places to make it stay where I wanted. Then I added my beaded berries from the other day. Done! Ta-dah! All I want to do still on this is to tack a circle of felt inside the back of each ornament to make sure it will pooch out instead of inward. (I promise not to inflict a picture of that on you though!)

I am putting away my inner critic who is whispering in my ear that the whole motif is too large and that doing my novice beading for Leslie, the beading queen, is like sending tea to China. I am happy and can now move on to some other stitching on this piece!