January Page For Needle Masters Monthly and Mirabilia Finish

I finished the 1996 Cherub for January page and added a needle tatted bookmark to the page and a few other little trinkets. i still feel it would look better with maybe a border around the Cherub but I can always add to it later.

Also finished the Bumblebee by Mirabilia for inside the front or back covers since there are 12 Cherubs there won't be a free page in my book for the two freebie bugs. I've got about a quarter of the Gold Butterfly finished and that one will also go inside one of the covers.

And I am trying to learn to Tat - I did complete a couple things with Needle Tatting but I am one of those who wants to learn the old-fashioned ways of doing things and so I am working on Shuttle Tatting now. I am super slow and awkward but learning is always that way. Here is what I have done of a Doily that I started yesterday and had to restart about a dozen times before finally getting the join in the center correct.

 Cherub Doily

I'm not totally sure where this will end up but finishing it will be the hardest part!

Needle Masters 2013 Book Cover Finished

So for next years Needle Master Monthly SAL we needed to have the book cover finished before the end of this year and even though I started out wanting a book of crochet lace samples I have changed that to using the Mirabilia Freebies instead. It works out really well since there are 12 cherubs one for each month. The two bugs will be done as well and will be mounted in the inside front and back covers.

For the front cover I choose to do the sign from Villa Mirabilia over one on 40 count linen. Instead of the beads I used kreinik #4 braid in purple to match the streamers that hang on either side of the banner. Thankfully there weren't very many beads in this section and so it was easy to fudge.

I also made a needle tatted border for around the oval and stitched it down with burgundy hex beads and also white cats eye beads secured with size 15 purple iris beads. It was really nice to be able to use up some of my misc beads.


I also tacked down a few rayon trim lace pieces for interest, all in all I really do like the finished product.

2006 Mirabilia Christmas Tree Finished

Before the beads and Kreinik

I just took this out of the frame after 3 days of beading! It's really heavy, with all those beads I will have to find a really good way to mount it or display it. As you know if you read my blogs I am not into the traditional answer of framing. Therefore I will need to be inventive with this one.

All Done 

I used size B Nimo Beading thread for this and most of my Mirabilia because it comes in about 20 colors so it is easy to match the background linen and it is one of the few threads that doesn't break when you are using Swarovski Crystals. I did have one incident on Peytons Mermaid where the crystal was so sharp that is cut the thread and had to be repaired but this was a very heavily beaded area and I now use a heavier weight Nimo.

Close up of beads!