A Little Beading and A New Project

 My local bead club decided to try a zoom meeting and suggested a project to work on. It was fun and more of a get together to chat and bead than a learning class. We all worked on the same project. This was the first time zoom was attempted and it looks like the club will keep it up as an open beading event twice a week. 

The project we worked on was 3D Peyote Squares by Kelly Dale of Off the Beaded Path. It was a lot of fun and as you can see I did quite a few and played around with colors a little. I made them into earrings and a necklace! This project used No. 11 Delicas.

The "chain" for this necklace is a spiral rope using No. 11 seed beads that matched the Delicas.

I also have an update on the Maria Antoni Sampler, progress as of August 26:

A little closer up here:

Last June I took advantage of an opportunity to get a limited edition kit commemorating the journey of the Mayflower to America. Designed by Brenda Gervais of With Thy Needle & Thread, it honors the Women of the Mayflower by listing their names in the sampler.  I am doing it on 40 count (the smallest I  have ever stitched on) because I loved the fabric color choice for that count. It is kind of mottled. I ordered my kit from Sassy Jacks Stitchery in North Carolina. I knew the owner when I lived in NC.

The kit arrived a couple of weeks ago and came in a nice box and included a cute pilgrim needle minder, a label for the back when finished and framed, a ring to hold threads and a card to put on the ring to mark the project the threads were for. Of course the fabric, threads and chart were in the box too!  

It also had a bonus chart and some fabric to use as backing if we wanted to make the bonus into a pillow, along with finishing instructions to get the best use of the fabric. It is a reproduction of the page of Mayflower passenger William Bradford.

Since 2020 marks the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower, the general idea was to start the Sampler on September 6, the day the Mayflower set sail, and finish the sampler on November 11, the day the Mayflower landed in Cape Cod. It was a 66 day journey.  

Since I am doing it on 40 count linen the finished size will be approx. 6 1/4 inches by 21 inches. Here is my progress so far:

I will be doing this with lots of lighting and magnification!! I am looking forward to it since I love history and this combined with my love of stitching! 

Happy Stitching!!