"Sunrise" - My First Embroidered Cuff

I finally finished my first embroidered cuff. I planned to make a rather geometric pattern, but when I started working I was drawn to a freer pattern. I worked on one section at a time, without much planning. (Some photos of the work in progress are here and here).
To be honest, I am not sure how I feel about the result. It didn't come out the way I saw it in my mind.
BUT, I got a lot of satisfactory by the fact that I managed to finish it, and more important – I have learned a few important things about bead embroidery and gained some experience. I've learned a few things about myself, too; One is that I need to be more patient and stay positive when dealing with unexpected major problems in my work (and stop to scare my family with my frustration screams..) Another one is to really accept a compromise when I decide to make one, and not think about it over and over again after it has already been done; To practice a lot more, just as I did when I taught myself beadweaving- to start with small projects and progress gradually (did I mention patience?...;) So, all in all, it's an accomplishment for me, regardless the imaginative cuff I had in my mind… :)

I finished the body a while ago, but then faced the challenge of sewing it to a genuine leather backing - it was so hard to pass the needle through the leather - my size 10 beading needle was not good for this (I actually broke two of them by trying).
I had to use a special thick needle for leather works. The thick needle did pass trough the leather (though not easily), but it was too thick to pass even trough 6/0 seed beads holes. So I had to take separate steps: first connect the two materials and then stitch rows of beads to cover the connecting points. Step 1 caused my fingers to feel numb for a few days. I didn't succeed in using a thimble to help me push the needle through the leather, so I used my bare fingers. I still have this ugly distortion on my thumb – it is now acts as a reminder for me, to find and buy Ultrasuede in a few colors for my next embroidery works… Step 2, the diagonal rows on the edges, actually added about 15 mm to the final width of the cuff. I didn't plan to make a 2.4 inch (6 cm) wide cuff, but I couldn't think of another way to finish it. And I just had to finish it! ;)

My New Journey is About to Begin

A very dear and talented friend, Patrizia Tager of Triz designs, has been a source of inspiration to me. Her beautifully designed and created embroidered art, as well as her posts about her work-in-progress, inspired me and made me want to try and learn this technique. Thank you Triz, your work is great!

I have never done any embroidered work. The only work I have done using a similar technique was this freeform cuff, but it's not real embroidery. I am now very curiouse about real embroidery.
I have recently bought Sherry Serafini & Heidi Kummli's book "The Art of Bead Embroidery" and I really enjoyed it. I also have bought some backing materials from Nicole Campanella of Beadwright (Nicole is also the author of a book about "Flatwork" that she has recently published).
So, everything is ready for my new journey to this fascinating world of embroidery, and I am planning to start my first work right after I will finish the last few rows of a new bracelet that I am now working on (I try to focus on one work at a time).


Funny, how sometimes things change during our lives… when I was younger, I used to make many kinds of arts and crafts like sketching, sculpting, scrape booking, knitting and craving, but the only thing I didn't like to do was needle work… and now, not only it has become my favorite technique of beading, but I am so excited to try the embroidery work!...

Speaking of scrape booking, one of the pages in my son's Bar Mitzva album that I really enjoyed making was a page with a photo of bead artist Louise Hill's mural "Jerusalem" that she painted many years ago. Louise sent me the photo of her beautiful painting when I was in the beginning of making this album and I liked it so much! (She told me that she painted it just from the images she saw in her head…Isn't it amazing?!) The minute I saw this wonderful painting of Jerusalem, I thought that it might fit in so well in my son's album. Louise kindly allowed me to use it as the background of a page, and here is the result. I only added the famous traditional quote from the bible, talking about the commandment not to ever forget Jerusalem, and a photo of my son, looking out from the window….
Dear Louise, my son likes it so much and so do I. Thank you very much, you are so kind and so full of talents!

In case you don't know it yet, Louise also has a wonderful designs blog, on which she is featuring beautiful and inspiring works of art from all over the world.