Queen Mermaid - Finished!

The particulars: The pattern is Queen Mermaid by Mirabilia. The fabric is 28 count (done over 2) Sterling Silver hand dyed linen from Silkweaver. She was started September 2010 and completed May 22, 2011.

She is my first finish of 2011. Ack!

QM is my first project since deciding to switch over to using 28 count fabric instead of 32 count fabric. After struggling getting all the beads on Midsummer Night's Fairy with her 32 count fabric, I decided that I'd start kitting up projects with 28 count if there were a lot of beads.

And QM definitely has a lot of beads, but honestly? They're so scattered across her that I don't think upsizing the fabric made much of a difference, except perhaps for her beaded collar and crown. But you'll be glad to know that the beads are sitting nicely in those areas thankyouverymuch. If I'd substituted Miyuki Delicas for the Mill Hills, I wouldn't have had anything to worry about at all as far as getting beads to fit neatly on. Duly noted for future projects.

The briolettes are a nice touch as far as the sparkle factor goes but are just kind of hanging on to her lower body. If I had to redo, I'd probably relocate them so that they looked like they were hanging off some of the seaweed instead of just hanging on to random body areas. Just sayin'. Also, the areas on the pattern that were left open for the briolettes and flower treasures were entirely too large (and oddly shaped to boot), so I did quite a bit of filling in there.

As I've mentioned before, I intend on doing Mirabilia's Deepest Love as a companion piece to Queen Mermaid. I have her kitted up and tucked away with another piece of Sterling Silver linen but I'm not sure that she'll be my next Mermaid start. Enchanted is calling quite loudly so we shall see. Eventually I'll have them framed to match so QM and Deepest can hang out together, probably in the powder room.

Queen Mermaid...nekkid!

Nekkid in that she's all finished with the cross stitch, but still needs her beads and just a bit more backstitching. Yay!

Lots of beading to do, so it will probably take a few more days.

Every Queen needs a little bling...

It's almost that time!

I pulled out the beads for Queen Mermaid this morning, although I'm not quite ready to start beading. I'm using all the recommended Mill Hills. More on Mill Hills in a few....

The numbers in the slots are clipped off the Mill Hill packages, just so I know which ones to use where. It's a lazy way to keep track but highly effective.

And of course, the Mill Hill Treasures:

Sparkly!

I'm looking forward to doing the beading...just a little more stitching and backstitching to do first.

So. About Mill Hills. There's always leftover beads at the end of a project, and the question is what to do with them. In theory, I could bag them up, tag with their ID number, and hope I can use them for another project. If you've been following my blog, you've probably already figured out that is probably far too organized for me. I do have a small "bead soup" type jar that I usually toss the leftovers in.

And now, there's the new bead stitching/jewelry obsession, and frankly, Mill Hills are not good for this type of use because as you've no doubt noticed if you've used them, they're not exactly the most even-sized beads out there. That's being diplomatic, right? Anyway, they're fine for stitching - there's usually plenty of them to pick through and you can discard the truly awful ones.

Did some searching around and I've found that you can get the tubes of Miyuki Delicas for about the same price as the smaller packets of Mill Hills online...and the added bonus is that the Delicas come in more colors and are just about perfectly even so can be used for my other crafting activities.

So I think, in the future, I'll be swapping out Mill Hills on stitching projects for Delicas so I can use the leftovers in jewelry projects. There's certainly no shortage of Delica colors so I can't see having a problem finding satisfactory matches.

Well hello there....

Obligatory face shot....she needs some beads!

Slowly but surely!

So even with a finish so close, I'm in a bit of a stitching mojo funk. I'm not really sure why, other than it hits the best of us from time to time. I'm still stitching; but just an hour here and there really. Ugh. Maybe I need a new start to kick me into high gear?

I am getting really close to being able to bead Queen Mermaid though. Here she is.

Arms and head done....most of the hair (although I'm short one color - ack!)...her gift and some seaweed to do as yet.

QM Watch

And the Queen Mermaid watch is on!

There's only a minimal amount of stitching to do on her now - mostly her face, hair, another arm, and the funky box thing she's holding. Oh excuse me. Her "treasure". LOL

And of course, the requisite going back and filling in anything I missed, some backstitching, and beading. Lots of beading! But regardless, there's an end in sight, and it's high time I had a big finish this year, so QM is my focus until she's complete.

Never fear, fellow Mermaid lovers, I have more Mermaids lined up. If you recall, my plans for QM include stitching her a companion, Deepest Love, on the same fabric. Long term, I'll get them framed to match so I have the option of having them "hang out" together. That said, yes, Deepest will be my next start, but I'll probably give a little love to some of the other Mira projects that I have going first, since I've been focusing on both QM and Knotgarden lately.

Check back for regular QM updates - she'll be finished soon!

Ribbons and Seaweed

It's Mermaid week, so I've been working on Queen Mermaid, slowly but surely. I finished her arm, but was focusing on filling in the cascading ribbons and the seaweed. I'll probably finish off that one batch of seaweed before putting her away until next month.

QM is getting close to getting finished, isn't she? Once I get all the stitching done, there's a TON of beading to do on her. They really are all over her, and I have found that I've missed a lot of stitches since the beading has really broken up the stitching in a lot of places. I'm filling those in as I notice them, but I expect when I start beading I'll find a lot more and have to fill in.

I'm debating if I want to work on another project for a week or so or just go straight back to plugging on at Knotgarden.

Oops....wardrobe malfunction!

Of sorts, anyway. I was trucking along with my #4 peacock Kreinik, filling in a lot of the body area that I'd previously skipped. Ran through the one roll, reached for my backup roll and realized that instead of another #4, my ONS had accidentally sent me a #8....ack!

So here is Queen Mermaid, not quite covered up:

I'll have to order another roll so I can finish her "top".

I'm fairly pleased with my progress overall this week, wardrobe malfunction aside. Finished her tail, filled in more of her body, got started on her arms, hair.

The interesting thing is that depending on the light (day, night, OTT lite, etc), the color of the fabric (Sterling Silver by Silkweaver) keeps changing between gray and blue and somewhere in between. It has a really interesting depth of color and luminosity that I can't seem to quite pick up on the camera (as per usual).

Mirabilia Mermaid SAL

Towards the end of last year, I joined up with some fellow Mira mermaid enthusiasts on the Mirabilia Stitchers discussion board for a Mermaid stichalong (SAL), where we'd work on our chosen Mermaid the first week of every month.

I opted to do Queen Mermaid, because I had just started her anyway. I ended up not working on her in February because I was cruising along with Garden Verses and enjoying working on her (what can I say - at the end of the day, this IS a hobby to enjoy above all else!). I put away Knotgarden yesterday and got a head start on Queen Mermaid for March.

Here's where she is as of yesterday:

The fabric is Sterling Silver by Silkweaver.

I definitely will finish up her tail fin this week, and probably get some work done on her back and arms. I'll post another picture at the end of the week so I can see how far I got.

As with most Mirabilia mermaids, she seems to be working up fairly quickly. I'm looking forward to having both QM and her companion piece, Deepest Love, finished within a reasonable amount of time.

Queen Mermaid

A finish always calls for a new start, doesn't it?

And so I got started on Queen Mermaid (yes, another Mirabilia) this week.   The fabric is Sterling Silver cashel linen from Silweaver, which has a lovely blue-silver tone to it, perfect for mermaids.   She's the first start of a Mirabilia since I decided to switch over to 28 count fabrics for anything that has a lot of beading on it.   I prefer stitching on 32 count fabric for sure, but I think when it comes to getting all the beads on, I'll be happier with that decision - I hate having to struggle to make them fit or leave out rows of them because they just won't. 

Mirabilia mermaids just seem to stitch up very quickly, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  They tend to be a bit smaller than the Grand Ladies that I like - for the most part, they comfortably fit on fat quarter size fabrics.    I need to order the bling for her as I'll need the metallics sooner rather than later.  She has lots of beads and treasures as well (of course!).

I'll probably continue stitching her over the weekend simply because I'm really enjoying myself.