I suppose this is a UFO…

I was looking for something else entirely when I found this beadwork brooch started on a piece of perforated paper. It must be close to thirty years old, like the Japanese Embroidery kit, so it’s been languishing for a while.

There seems to be a bit of a theme of tidying up UFOs in odd moments while I’m working on the Amarna Family Group, so it didn’t take me long to decide that it would be a good idea to finish this one while I’m about it!

Nor did it take too long to finish the beadwork, once I’d found my bearings on the chart and learnt how to distinguish the different bead colours end-on, as well as side-on. The pale blue, lilac, and dark lilac look much the same when most of what you see is the hole through the middle.

The only time I’m happy to use glue with my stitching is on the back of pieces like this, so I painted the back with glue and trimmed the paper to size, adding a felt back and the brooch finding.

Once I’d done that, however, I thought that as a brooch, it would look a bit half-hearted. So I decided to add some stems – just randomly strung green beads from the leftovers, using proper beading thread and a beading needle.

Then I oversewed the edge in dark green, filled in the gaps with inktense, and tied a tiny bow at the front. I don’t know whether the original designer would approve, but I like my version better than theirs!

In other news, Episode 29 of Slow TV Stitchery is now live. In which it is noted that two needles are not less trouble than twenty-seven, some further thought is given to the presentation of the finished piece, and a milestone is reached…