Tree of Life Done

 It looks gorgeous! The photo does not do it justice! Now to figure out the framing, and considering the next project...

Tree of Life Almost Done

 Only things left are the spangles! This is a beautiful piece, very 3-dimensional. I did not do a perfect job, but it's still gorgeous to look at!

Acorns

 Next is the snail.

More Grecian Stem

I missed one Grecian stem to the second flower before, and had to stitch it today. I was able to sink both ends using the scotch tape method. So please that I had to stop to jump around a bit.

Alison Cole's Goldwork Masterclass book arrived a couple days ago. There are some discussions of the Tree of Life project in that book! Didn't realize that, or else I would have been very apprehensive to attempt it. No wonder it was so difficult!!

Today's progress. I think it's more than half done, without major boo-boo's. Keeping my fingers cross.

Sinking Grecian Stems

Progress so far. Worked on the Grecian stems and decided that I would not follow the instructions. Sometimes I would succeed in sinking the Grecian by wrapping scotch tape around the thread to make it into a point, and pulled it through the hole I made with the awl. In other places I wasn't able to do that and had to separate the plies in order to sink the thread. Not separating the plies made for a better stem.

  

The red circles marked the stems that were sunk without separating the plies, and the green circles were sunk by separating plies. The yellow circle marked the spot where the shorter stem has to go under the longer stem (which was stitched first), and instead of sinking on both sides of the longer stem (groan), I carefully unstitched that part of the longer stem and threaded the other Grecian underneath.

After sinking metal threads I checked to see if I needed to re-stretch to make it drum tight again.

Pomegranate done

 Decided to put an edge around the pomegranate - purl edging covers up a host of sins, probably a sign of bad stitching! I forgot to save a gold bead for the snail's head; briefly thought about unstitching one but it's too dangerous - all the beads may fall apart! Will have to come up with something else.

Pomegranate

 The pomegranate element was a minor disaster. I tried to stitch the miliary wire per the instructions, but it turned out SO bad. Unfortunately the kit only came with one sufficient length of wire and I couldn't restitch, having ruined some of the loops. Besides any more restitching and I would have also ruined (badly) the gilt smooth purl. So I left out the purple couching altogether. I did pile on the beads to cover up the bad edges. I tried to turn the beads so that the holes are not visible, but some of them are not turned the right way. I may try to fix them later (or I may not, it's amazing how a bad job would improve overnight by itself!) All in all not the greatest work...😞

Tree of Life Goldwork

 Working on Alison Cole's Tree of Life. Every element was difficult; even those that I thought I knew how to do. I was most worried about the grapes - kid leather wrapped pebble beads, as the instruction indicated that I should do the middle ones first such that the mistakes would be covered by the adjacent grapes. I was very surprised that the grapes were not that difficult; and I enjoyed stitching them! Now working on the pomegranate - the tip didn't turn out great, but the first try was much worse! I kept re-measuring, re-cutting and re-stitching the gilt smooth purl, until I realized that the ragged edges could be covered by the "seeds" strategically, and progress was much faster. 

Tiny Turtle

Having gone for quite a while, surprised that this site is still available. This is Susan Casson's Tiny Turtle from Inspirations magazine, with minor modifications. I did not glue sand onto the background, and the turtle pieces were stitched on a separate backing and then attached, giving it more the 3D look. The shell padding was such that the smallest felt pad was on top (contrary to the usual method), giving the shell the bumpy realistic look.

I am now working on Alison Cole's Tree of Life Goldwork. I was pleasantly surprised that the delivery from Australia to the US was ok during this time.