Sparkly Wheels

I've been playing with Sparkly Wheels from Beadwork June/July 2010

 

 I chose to insert rivolis before closing the back

 There are lots of deisgn ideas you can do with these

Soutache with a rivoli

To use a rivoli or cabochon for Soutache glue your rivoli to foundation fabric, I've used felt and bezel in your favourite way. I've used peyote, then a backstitch row of size 11's
Cut your pieces of soutache braid, this brand frays so I've dabbed a bit of fraycheck on each end

 Start with a few stitches in the soutache to hold the braid together then lay on felt and stitch from soutache down through felt, back up and through soutache until you've been around the rivoli

 Join the two sides of braid together without going through felt

 Trim carefully

 Then finish off ends of soutache as normal

 The rivoli component is now ready to continue adding braid and beads to it

Todays wildlife visitors

(photos taken from front verandah)
A group of kangaroos near our property corner they had come down the hill thinking they might cross the road. Some went back into paddock others went down around the house a few thought they'd try the road

 A large 4wd came up the road so they changed their minds on crossing

 This is the fellow from above pic and below, he couldn't decide which way to go but ended up bouning over the fence and back through the paddock

 The ones which had gone down around house are safely back in our back paddock before going through the fences

Soutache Supplies

I am so excited my order of Soutache supplies arrived today from http://ameerunswithscissors.com/
Amee is the wonderful artist who did the soutache tutorial in Bead and Button. (There is an extra one on the website for B&B). I had bought the harp video tutorial from Amee's website, it has excellent instructions for anyone to follow and great to set up on ipad to follow step by step. Amee is also a member of a facebook group I am on and has shared some wonderful tips.

So with all these gorgeous colours of braid and nymo I can finish my practice piece from below and then play. Next to hunt out what gems and crystals I have to go with them.

Enchanted Rivoli Earrings

Yesterday was our Brisbane meet for the forum. This  challenge was from Beadwork August/September 2012 "Enchanted Rivoli Earrings". It was a great tutorial which we all enjoyed making. There were several combinations of colours which always gives us all great ideas.

My practice Soutache piece

After purchasing the harp video tutorial(from artists website) and doing the tulip tutorial from the magazines website, I decided to use this picture as an extra tutorial. There is very little available in tutorials, books and general howto's. the components in my piece still need to have suede backing, edge stitching and to be connected.
I've taken a few step by step pics of my third component, which I'll share with you. The first 2 components I was able to follow quite closely, estimating the lengths of braid I needed. When I got to the thrid piece my estimation was way out so I had to take a different curve.

As you can see I started with 6 layers of braid around a 6 or 8mm gem taking just the 2 shades of blue downwards, then the upwards set I split, then added another round of light blue in as I had run out.

I added 4mm between the teal braids, this colour was much softer then the others, I felt it didn't hold shape well. The light blue was very firm with a hard string inside the dark blue was a medium firmness. Particularly with the soft braid you need to watch the needle doesn't make it fluffy.

Because i wanted to continue the braids around I stitched them together first before finishing the ring around the green gem.

I did a bit of extra stitching and positioning with the yellow 4mm before anchoring the underneath part.

I made an extra couple of components
component A

component B

then laid it out to see how they'd fit pushing bits around to get an idea of where to attach them

I attached piece A first then attached B to A then wrapped the bottom piece around stitched to B in a couple of places then anchored B to main part pushing and manoeuvring where I needed to 

 stitching and attaching where I felt it needed it

 till I ended with this

You can stitch back through early spots or beads to get somewhere or make firmer, put bridging beads where you feel a gap needs it. When I'm ready to glue to suede I'll give it a push and poke sitting beads up and settling braid a bit, when it's dry I'll trim it carefully, and not too close, then brick stitch edge beads.
The centre component with the cab - the cab was glued to LSS and stitched as you normally would then I stitched the braid to the LSS going through the ditch then LSS and back through, a bit like what you do on the edge stitch. then I trimmed the LSS and continued joining braid to braid with beads between.

Main Rules
- line all braids with v going same direction
- stitch in the ditch, being easy on tension
- put a few stitchs one braid to one braid of opposite side to pull in firmly before going through the lot
- use a sharp strong needle, no burring on end, the eye about same width as needle (I use an embroidery needle straw 10)

Then play and experiment