My 2024 Battle of the BeadSmith design features flowers made using Miyuki round and delica beads in bright, joyful colors. The flowers are sewn down around some hand-painted cabochons I made last fall. The cabs are painted with alcohol inks and gel enamels with glitter added. The luminosity was an inspiration for the bead palette. I attached the bead embroidery together using Starman suede gold round beads in equally bright colors.
I made a book with patterns of the flowers from the necklace. There are 14 patterns in the book. Each of the flowers on the necklace is included, plus some other flowers I have made in the past year like thistle and African Daisy. The book is available on the Blurb website, and in my Etsy shop. I think it is my best one so far; or at least I have figured out more of how Adobe Illustrator aligns things within the drawings so they look better overall. Many of the flowers are built in layers and most are made using peyote stitch. The marigold is brick stitch and the chicory is herringbone. I used delica beads for many of the flowers because of the wide range of colors available. Some of the blossoms, like the marigold, I have made using round beads in the past. When making the marigold flower above for the necklace I used 7 different shades and finishes of orange placed randomly.
Each flower was sewn to a cabochon "island", which were all assembled together to create a necklace.
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