Persephone is Finished!

Hello Everyone!!  I'm doing a huge Happy Booty Dance today as late last night I finished my Mermaid of the Pearls!  So glad to be done with her!  I feel like she's been a mini-obsession for the last four months.  She was started on December 25th, 2011 and completed on April 27th, 2012.  The color conversion is posted as a separate page on the right side of this blog. 

And of course I have some close-ups!  She has over 3400 beads, 4 Swarovski crystals, 3 Mill Hill treasures and 31 fresh-water pearls. 

First, a close up of the beading on her body:

And here is a close-up of her face:

This is a close up of the cascade of beads and pearls.  I subbed petite seed beads for all of the kreinik in the cascade and fresh-water pearls for the Mill Hill pebble beads.

I chose to substitute the Mill Hill heart treasure for a Swarovski Crystal Shell.  Here is a close up of that shell

And the last picture I want to share is of the frame I bought and plan to frame her in.  I think it suits her really well.

Thanks for all of the support and encouragement while I worked on her!

Also, I'm leaving the giveaway contest open until Saturday night at midnight CST.  If you'd like to enter, please comment on the previous post.

TTFN!

Another Giveaway!

Hello Everyone!  I cannot thank you all enough for following me in my cross stitch journey!  But I'm going to try!  I said when I reached 50 followers, I would give away a stitcher's eighth of hand-dyed fabric!  Any type, any count as long as my LNS has it. :)  Please leave a comment on this post with type and color you'd like and I'll print out the comments and pull one out of a hat.  I thought that would be the most fair way to do it.  So please let me know what color fabric you'd like and I'll have fun dyeing it for you!

I also wanted to acknowledge two special ladies and their blogs.  They gave me more Liebster Awards and I'd love to share their blogs with you.  First is Jocelyn and her blog Stitchy Minds Think Alike.  She is currently working on two Mirabilias and a Mirabilia Round Robin.  The second is Amanda and her blog A Stitch Menagerie.  She's almost done with Mirabilia's Summer Queen and she's a great person to contact to order Mirabilias, beads and other fun stitchy stuff.

Sorry this post has no updates or pictures.  My camera and I are in an argument right now and it is winning.  TTFN!

Persephone's Pearls!

Hello All!  I hope everyone who is reading this is in good health and good spirits!  I've made a lot of progress recently and I can't wait to show it off!

I finished Part 4 of Deep Blue Sea rather quickly.  It didn't have a whole lot to it but I'm betting the next 8 parts have a lot! 

I did not backstitch the oyster shells yet.  I think I want to backstitch them in long stitched with two strands and I don't think those will hold up well under the q-snap clamps.

I also finally finished all of the stitching on Persephone and started beading.  I'm thinking it will take several weeks to sew all of the beads, pearls and crystals on her.

She doesn't photograph well at all.  I tried a flash and natural light but this is still the best I could get.  Here is a close up of the fresh-water pearls in her hair.









I love the mauve pearls!  They sync so well with the colors!

I saw today I have officially 54 followers!  Now I get to offer as a prize a Stitcher's Eighth of hand-dyed fabric!  I'm still not sure how I will run the contest quite yet but I will let yal know in my next post.  TTFN!

Happy Easter!

Hello Everyone!  Happy Easter!  Or, as my brother-in-law puts it, Happy Jesus Zombie Day!  I hope everyone is having a wonderful day with family and friends.  I've spent a lot of time this weekend stitching and it has been wonderful!  In fact, I'm planning to get back to it as soon as I get off the computer. 

I actually have a lot of progress to show this week!  First, I finished the bottom of Persephone's tail.  The next step is to frog all of the blue kreinik as I plan to replace it with petite seed beads.

I'm also undecided about which color family of pink to make the bubbles.  Since I want her to look like she's in a pink ocean, I think the bubbles should be pink as well.  Once I'm finished with Part 4 of Deep Blue Sea, I'll pull the different pinks I'm considering and try to choose a family that will compliment the pinks already in her tail.  I'm really anxious to get back to her since I found the perfect frame for her on clearance at Joann's Fabrics.

I'm half-way done with Part 4 of Deep Blue Sea.  I want to finish Part 4 before I work on Persephone again and so I'm stitching as quickly as I can! 

 The designer calls for a pearl to be in the center of Deep Blue Sea and I thought that would make the center look bulky but she suggests using pearls inside of the oyster shells instead of dense rhodes stitches.  I think I'll probably do that as I think the pearls in the shells will even out the balance with the pearl in the center.  Here is a close-up of the oyster shell on the right with the pearl.  I still need to backstitch them but since a lot of the backstitching is long stitches, I'll probably wait until the end to backstitch them.

\Hopefully by next weekend I'll have Part 4 done!  TTFN!