Problems and Solutions
Last night while beading the outer arch of my piece, I realized that I was completely losing the line of the border between the outer and middle arches. I spent a couple of hours last night trying to add different things to fix it, but nothing was working. It was done in threaded stem stitch, so I tried doing a second threading in a couple of different threads in darker colors and lighter colors, but it was all just blending in. I thought I might try making some lucet cord today and couching that down, although I wasn't sure how well the square cord would bend into the inverted point at the side of th arch. Finally today I pulled out the thread that was wound through the stem stitch. I left the original stem stitch since I had used the back of it to anchor some of the beading and looser stitches. I went over it in stem stitch with a light sand colored perle cotton, then I did a tight wrap of that in a slighter lighter tone of perle cotton. I was sad to have to get rid of my threaded stem stitch because I really liked the look of it, but this actually looks good. And you can *see* it, which is very important. And the stitch is rather interesting. It looks sort of rope-like, or maybe like a giant bullion knot going around the arch. Anyhow, I am feeling the tiniest bit smug for having come up with a solution that didn't involve having to take off any of my precious beads. As a matter of fact, I have to add beads in a few spots on the middle arch because the original border was wider and flatter that what I have now. So what am I doing here, typing, when I could be putting beads on?!