Beads and trims

My black glass pearl beads arrived and I am, it seems, not good at judging either size or quantity!  Luckily, the size, whilst smaller than my 'two fingers held apart just so guesstimate', is perfect.  And you can always order more, which I did, plus some lovely looking burnt orange beads too, cos they were there, and looked pretty, and are still amazingly cheap, you can never have enough beads and will always find something to do with them... yes, I am randomly shopping... did I mention that the boyf is off on a last minute boys (Bank Holiday, no less) weekend to Alicante? I need something to keep me occupied whilst he's vacationing ;o)

Once the orange beads arrive, I will try mixing them with the black ones for the other two strands of the necklace; the black only is a too stark a contrast to the middle strand.



In the meantime, I have also started to play with the bugle beads; stitching them to the organza ribbon, mixing the colours (a peachy tinted silver, off white, deep yellow, red and chocolate brown) randomly.  I made a test piece approx 4" long.  It's a pig to do, small, fiddly and prone to twisting; I learnt to stop fighting it and embrace the "flow"!  It doesn't suit as a bilament to the front of the gown, but more and more I don't think that I'll need it and I am so in love with my orange damask, it seems a shame to keep finding things to cover it up.  I can imagine it working very well as a bilament for the front of the French Hood though; mixed with some of the glass beads for continuity.

Elizabethan goes Oriental

My bead and sequin collection proved to be a little goldmine and I'm unashamedly going to "off piste" with my decoration.  It's all the fault of the beautiful red "bamboo" beads that I found in one of the boxes, which match perfectly with a set of multi-coloured carved beads with gold detailing.  I couldn't resist a nod to my childhood, quickly strung them onto a narrow black ribbon, pinned them onto the kirtle front and voila!, they're staying... it wasn't a hard sell ;o) 

Somewhere I have handfuls of faux black jet beads which could have possibly been pearls but they allude me so, one very successful bid on ebay later and for 79p (!) I will soon be in possession of 100 or so 6mm black glass faux pearls.  I also have hundreds of bugle beads and some 6mm brown gauze ribbon; I am toying with them for the bilament - though I am still toying with the idea of having a bilament at all; perhaps the pearl edging and necklaces will be enough... I'll see.

Meanwhile, I need to stop fiddling and get on with the smock.