Embroidery from Game of Thrones

Okay, I have not been doing much for the last month except torturing myself trying to take sharp pictures of resin pendants with the only camera I own, a slim little digital point-and-shoot. This setting, that setting, outside, inside, downstairs, upstairs, in my lady's chamber...

Sorry, got a little carried away there. I've got a couple of friends who understand photography and I've begged them for help, but it's difficult because they speak Photography. I'd understand them better if they spoke Swahili and that's not a figure of speech, it's the literal truth. Anyway, looks as if a slightly more sophisticated camera may be in my future.

The last few days I've been thinking that I don't want to make any more resin pendants if I can't find some way to photograph and sell them, and isn't it about time to get back to playing with fiber, maybe a small embroidery....Then a friend sent me a link to Michele Carragher's website. and there went the afternoon, drooling over her incredibly rich work - and yes, she does the embroidery for Game of Thrones. Now I want to encourage everyone I know to waste their own time looking at all the pictures on this incredible website. By the way, the home page has a link to a page called "How I Create an Embroidery." Don't miss it. And be sure to scroll down until you get to the jeweled bugs.

Lacy Looped Fringe Instructions

Loop-ended fringe

Just as with spikes, you can end a spike fringe stitch with a loop instead of with a big bead and a pivot bead or any of the other variations we’ve already discussed. All by itself, I have to say this doesn’t make a terribly exciting fringe.



It should be obvious from the diagram how you do it: string on enough beads for the desired length of fringe, then string on enough more to make a graceful loop (the 7 pictured are a minimum; I actually like my loops with 8-10 beads) and then go back up the first lot of beads you strung. (Again, probably more than 5. Think 10, 15 beads at a minimum if you want a gracefully swaying fringe.)

Where looped fringes really come into their own is when you start adding loops before you get to the end, like this:



It does make a difference which way your thread runs, so bear with me while I dissect this one in a little more detail:

String on 4 beads. Now string on 7 more beads and go through the 4th bead again, in the same direction as before. (If you keep stringing in the same direction as before your loops will dangle gracefully. If you string back into the base fringe in the opposite direction then your loops will stick out. You could think of them as perky and individualistic, but I find the effect is more like that of a person with very curly hair on an extremely bad hair day.)

And that’s about it, really. String on 4 more beads, then do another 7-bead loop maintaining the direction of stringing, keep on this way until your fringe is long enough, then close it off with one last loop and run the needle back up through all the main fringe beads but without passing back through any of the loop beads.

Massed together, these multi-loop fringes can give a beautifully rich and lacy look. I used them to decorate the strap and half the beading on Crazy Lace Cascade. The original crazy lace agate stone had bands of even color on one side and a wild tumble of pale peach and pearl curls on the other side; I tried to duplicate that effect in the beading, with fringes falling over the stone as well as around it. (see previous post for a picture, or go to my website for a really detailed picture.