Refinery

Sometimes I make a lot of progress on a piece but that doesn't necessarily mean that I've stitched a lot on the piece.

Since the last progress report, I decided to add one more bit of cream chantilly lace to extend that floral spray to just slightly cover the black motif...

I wanted the black motifs to recede in the "picture" while bringing the cream flowers forward.

I also stitched two very simple seam treatments on the seams that lie underneath those cream flowers...

And I added some silver chain stitching to the "stems" on the cream lace. That's about it as far as real stitching goes...

But as far as mapping out the progress of the stitching on the bock...I have made lots of very important decisions in the past two days.

The biggest one was deciding to really honor that beautiful chantilly lace by converting the lace flowers into three-dimensions using stumpwork.

From the beginning, I've always known that Audrey and the chandelier would be in the foreground...

But I always thought I would do a jewel cluster or something in the upper right hand corner where that Chantilly lace is...

Not anymore. That lace is too beautiful not to showcase in some way.

Now the hard part. Figuring out how to stitch the stumpwork petals and leaves...so that I respect the beauty of the original lace...and hopefully....enhance it.

That leads me right back to materials...Everything is going to have to be tiny. 2mm silk ribbon...tiny beads...tiny stitches...

I'm playing with some organza and lace for the stumpwork petals...and perhaps using the tiniest bits of tulle.

Here's a picture showing a 1/4" strip of tulle gathered on a needle. The silk tulle is one the left needle and trailing away to the left on the bottom. The polyester tulle on on the right and is on top as it trails away.

I was trying to capture the difference with my camera...The silk tulle has more character and appears a little more fragile...which I like.

Also...when working with those flowers...the spaces are quite tiny. Here are some size 20 and 22 degree beads that I may be using...

They are about half the size of a normal size 11 seed bead...and require size 15 beading needles and size 00 nymo beading thread. They just look a little "bigger" in the photograph because of the macro lens I'm taking the picture with...

As you can see...things are becoming very delicate and tiny around here...And I think I have approximately 20 or so tiny stumpwork petals to make.

I think I'll practice on a sample first to make sure my idea will really work. Practice makes perfect.

Looks like my end date, just got a little farther away.