Yamka Wuti, part 1

Now that I'm officially allowed to start sharing pictures, I figured I'd start close to the beginning! These pictures were taken 5/28. The phoenix and butterfly were stitched separately, then added to her skirt. I stitched the phoenix body with additional layers of felt for the body, then did a layer of fringe on the wings and tail. The butterfly picture is before stitching, showing the layers of felt. I'll stitch the outline, tack down the pieces of felt, do the beadwork and remove the outline stitches. I've learned that trimming the pieces with the blade of the scissors against the beads, so it cuts one blade-width away, allows me room to sew one row of beads to anchor the piece to the foundation (in this case, the skirt piece). I cut paper patterns in this case, making sure they fit in the area of the skirt that they needed to.

On my other projects, I was cutting the pieces of felt to fit the design, tacking them on the foundation, and then beading. I've learned that doing it as a separate piece allows me to let the beads dictate the form better, so it's more even. It's also easier to do it in layers than to try to get everything even and then realize half-way through the beadwork that it's off by half a beadwidth on one side.