The trouble with undertaking to publish every version of my ‘I Heart Beads’ IBW project here is that I have to show you the ones which didn’t work. Whilst that’s rather embarrassing for me I guess it’s an important principle to help us all remember that not everything we attempt comes out how we envisioned, but we still learn from trying. So, with a deep breath and some embarrassment (and amusement) I have to tell you that the promised Barbie version totally failed! I made a number of very bad decisions which I hope sharing here will stop you from repeating……….
1) I used a very stiff iridescent plastic fabric for the ribbon. Pretty, but hard to work with, and extra hard to write on with 1mm pearl purl. That might have worked on my usual ultrasuede but not on this stuff, particularly as all needle piercings left a visible hole. I need more practice with materials like this.
2) The ribbon somehow ended up about 1mm too far to the right and 3mm too far up, which has really significantly upset the balance. A silly mistake, and I should have realised as I was working.
3) I attempted to hide the mess with crystal lochrosen in a kind of ‘bubble’ effect which made it look even messier.
4) Something is wrong with the beading too – too many pink rizos, not enough sequins, the groupings are too small on the top section and I probably shouldn’t have bothered with the blue cup beads. What a mess.
5) The black cup chain, which worked really well on the previous versions now looks messy with the heavier beading. I should have gone with pearl purl to pull it back and give cleaner lines to balance it.
6) And finally the pink smooth purl I looped is the wrong shade – daft given the number of shades of pink I stock. Matching an iridescent fabric is tough and what worked in daylight doesn’t work in artificial light.
But all is not lost – I won’t be finishing this one, but I’ve learnt a lot, and I can frog it and re-use the beads and cup chain. And the even better news is that the one I made before I got sidetracked by #barbiecore actually worked, so I’ll show you that later!
The Indecisive Beader 