Yei-bi-chei Update

 I last told you about this project on my May 8, 2021 post.

I finished it! 

Here are some photos.

As mentioned on May 8, I was not sure I would have enough gold accentuate to finish. I did not, I was about 12" short!! I emailed the instructor and she sent me a spool! So this is how it looked when done.

The next step shown below was to remove canvas threads all around it. A bit scary, but I have done it before on a smaller piece, so I forged ahead.

Before I added the mask, I had to pad the area it was to be placed. Here is how it looked once the padding was complete. There are four layers of felt, each in decreasing sizes. You put the smallest one down first and work your way up to the biggest, and final piece.

The reason to remove the canvas threads is so we could use them to attach the mask to the other canvas, as shown in progress below.

Once that was all done it looked like this on the back.

Then I used a needle to put all the threads under the scotch and straight stitches made earlier. This secures the canvas threads. Here is how it looks below.

Here is the front after all the canvas threads are on the back and before the final steps.

Below is the FINISHED stitching after couching down around the edges a cording I made with two colors of the silk threads from the project and then a gold thread is couched on top of it. Then I added the real feathers, a square turquoise colored bead between the eyes and a tube bead for the mouth.

I am thinking it will be tricky to frame with that tube bead, it is approx. an inch long. Probably will need a shadow box and it was designed for a matt to go up to the edges of the stitching on the right - that is why the mask is not a full circle. I could almost do it myself since the opening is 8"x10". But probably not...stay tuned.

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Also in case you are interested I found this link about Yei-bi-chei from the mask museum.

Happy Stitching!!