With Valentines Day just around the corner, I thought you might like to stitch a very quick and pretty design using beads - something perfect for your mother, daughter or dear friend? After all, why shouldn't Valentines Day be about showing love to all the special people who make your life bright?!
To start with you'll require a wooden frame.
Mine is tiny, the aperture just 3 inches across. I bought this frame as an ugly brown thing from the thrift shop, but after two coats of cheap acrylic craft paint it was beautiful and perfect for my needs.
Other requirements:
fabric to stitch the design on, small glass seed beads, red and green embroidery thread, and a piece of thin Pellon the same size as your frame aperture.
(the aperture is the 'window' size your photo or stitchery can be seen through)
Download the pattern sheet HERE.
Trace the rose design across the centre of your fabric.
Fuse the thin Pellon behind it.
Thread your needle with a single strand of red thread, and secure the thread by making a knot behind the centre of the traced rose...
Thread a bead onto your needle, and just as you would make a normal back
stitch, push your needle through the very end of the traced rose and out the
back of the block, before bringing the needle back through the front slightly
ahead of the bead…
Continue with this until you have completed the rose shape...
When your rose is complete, secure the thread behind the block with a double knot.
Stem stitch the rose stem, and backstitch the leaves and bow with two strands of the red and green thread.
I covered the matting board of my frame with some sweet floral fabric.
If you'd like to do something similar I have a tutorial for that process HERE, and I also have a tutorial for framing stitcheries HERE.
If you have some old frames that may liven up a bit with a coat or two of paint, why not use them for your Beaded Roses block?
hugs
