Gold & Glass

Gold Dragon, Glass Beads.

No, this is not a schlocky kung-fu movie, it's my recent stitching finishes.

Exhibit A: sleepy little golden dragon snoozing on a cloud. Stitched on hand-dyed evenweave. A very small stitch at roughly 60 by 40 stitches, but the backstitching on these smaller patterns really makes up for the small size with detailing. The only downside is that at 1-over-1 on 32-count, you need sewing thread rather than embroidery floss for detailed backstitch. I haven't got all DMC colours in sewing thread, so that's not an option for most colours but I've managed at least where the pattern asks for 2 strands and 1 stand backstitching in black to use DMC and then sewing thread respectively to get most of that effect.

Exhibit B: tiny pagoda, with cherry blossom and pine trees around. On my typical easy count pre-gridded 32-count evenweave. Instead of French knots, I used Mill Hill petite seed beads for this project. Tiny little black and red glass beads took the place of tiny little knots here, to pretty good effect. I think they're a little larger than the French knots would have been, but the glossy look is nice and so is the raised effect.

I've got a third pattern lined up for while I'm in the stitching mood, but need to finish putting the last of my DMC threads on their bobbins, I've got the 900's and 3800's left to do - which seems to be most of the set!

Anyway, keep an eye out for that third piece eventually, if Genshin 5.7 doesn't distract me too badly that is :p