As promised Spring Queen:
It took me 10 hours to get all the beads on her, so you get all the close ups in their glory.
There were quite a few beads in her hair but I think Winter Queen had more. I vaguely remember having to leave out several beads in Her Winteriness' tiara to get it to sit properly. Or maybe I'm better at getting beads to sit now? I love how snooty her face looks.
Most of the beading was the detail on the border. At times it was a nightmare to get it to fit in the right place, especially the bits where it's a solid block of beads. These are the medium-ish beads. There's a smaller size that Nora uses that sits better but is more expensive. I think back when this chart was released Mill Hill didn't have that type available. I could have probably switched to it but they're a bit more expensive (and I used the medium ones on Winter Queen, so I had to maintain symmetry).
Fancy sleeve! I couched the necklace. I actually find it easier to couch metallics than backstitch them and there's no broken line effect so it's prettier!
While all the baby's breath (that's what those flowers are, right?) have beads there actually aren't any in the flowers themselves. It's a bit weird because the leaves on the dress have beads. I think the flowers are the biggest patch without beads. I could've swapped some in but that would involve too much work ;)
The brooch/pin/ribbon holding thing. When I was first stitching it I thought the whole thing was beaded and wasn't looking forward to trying to fit the beads in such a block, but it's actually half-beads half-metallic so it was easy. I had to look twice because I was expecting to use only red beads to fit the pink ribbon so I was thrown off by the blue and purple.
The ribbon is actually pretty interesting: there are beads on one side and the side where it's twisted around are metallic. I didn't realize this when I started beading because I thought it was all beads and I had to break out my Kreinik again every time I got to another bit of ribbon because I hadn't stitched it.
A shot of her upper body because I think the first picture shows off the dress but reduces the impact of the upper portion.
And finally, with her fellow Queen:
In a weird coincidence it took me about 170.5 hours for each queen. I always planned on stitching both of them, so I mirror imaged Spring so they'd be facing each other. I have no plans to stitch Autumn and Summer.
Summer because she doesn't have the same pose and
Autumn because I really don't like the colours.
I know the fabrics look very different but they are actually both white lugana. Oh well, if they aren't it's far too late now!
Title | Spring Queen |
Designer | Mirabilia |
Start date | January 1, 2011 |
Finish date | September 11, 2013 |
Total time | 170.5 hours |
Fabric | 32 ct white lugana |
Floss | DMC and beads as charted |
| Kreinik 002 instead of DMC 5832 |