Carolyn Pearce Strawberry Fayre heart etui 36: how to do beaded edging on the etui panels

I am currently stitching the Carolyn Pearce Strawberry Fayre heart etui as a stitchalong project. This week, I’ll explain how to do beaded edging on the etui panels. See the end of this post for all the information you’ll need to join in!

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This is the front panel of my heart etui, ready to have the beaded Knotted Pearl Stitch added to the top curved edge. The instructions in the Inspirations magazine issue 95 have a serious error at this point, and if you followed the instructions to the letter, you could end up trashing the whole thing!!

They say that you need to measure out 4 1/2 inches from the ‘tip of the V, and mark with a pin’ in order to work out where to do the beaded edging stitch. So the text is actually correct – as long as you realise that they mean the bottom tip.

BUT the diagram shows the measurement being taken from the *top* V of the heart, and measured out around the top curved edge, ending part way around the curve. What you really need to do is measure from the bottom tip of the heart along the straight edge for 4 1/2 inches, and mark with a pin there instead. If you actually did what they SHOW in their diagram, you’d end up not doing enough beaded edging, but working insertion stitch too far along the curved edge, so that the etui wouldn’t open flat when you’d finished, which would be a disaster after all this work. I’d like to thank Jeanette from Sydney, Australia, for pointing this out to me before I got to this point in the construction myself 🙂

So, what you actually need to do is to measure it like this:

I decided, at this point, that I would do all the remaining beaded Knotted Pearl Stitch with two strands of Anchor 267 instead of the Perle 8 in shade 469. This was because it was tough going to pull the needle through the edges of the heart shapes, and my fingers were wearing out! Using Anchor thread meant that I could use a finer needle (a Betweens 10) which was easier to get through the fabric, and the beads would always fit on the needle. With a tapestry 28, which I was using with the Perle 8 before, I was having to discard about a quarter of the beads, as they wouldn’t go over the needle. The shades are almost the same:

The side inner hearts, with their creases pressed in place, also need to be measured like the front and back panels, to have beaded edging done on them too.

So, I then spent hours doing the beaded Knotted Pearl Stitch, which was really nice to do, and gives a lovely finish to these panels.

This is one of the side panels with the beading completed. You can see here that the beading needs to come a long way round the curve, until it is definitely along the straight side, for it to work properly (as all the remaining straight edge will have insertion stitch added, to join it to the adjacent heart)

After I’d done all the beaded edging on these four panels, there was no more beading to do for this project, so I thought I’d show you how many beads I used. Obviously, I didn’t count them! Even I’m not that obsessive! But I had bought just one tube of hex beads – a fat tube, not a tall thin one – but even so, I had this many left out of one tube (almost half). It would have been helpful if the instructions had given some indication of how many I would need though.

So, next time I’ll be doing the insertion stitch to join these hearts together. Nearly there, now….

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~~~INFORMATION~~~

The Strawberry Fayre design, plus the complete list of materials, appears in Inspirations magazine number 95. The publishers do sell a full materials pack  (not including the mother of pearl ruler though!), but it’s rather expensive, so if you can use your stash, and just fill in with bits and pieces, then so much the better! The magazine is published in Australia – if you live in the UK, as I do, it is cheaper to buy a back copy from Manor House Magazines, and save a lot on the shipping. 

EDIT: The materials pack from Inspirations, and the magazine from Manor House in the UK are not available any more as at March 2018 – I don’t know if any more stocks will be available now, unfortunately. The publishers may bring out a digital pattern pack later, which they sometimes do with popular projects from their magazines, but we’ll have to wait and see…..

To read about this project stitchalong from the beginning, start here. The post about which FABRIC to use is here. The post about the THREAD SUBSTITUTIONS that I made, plus WHERE TO BUY the threads and beads, etc., is here.

To look up all the posts in this series in the sidebar, see under the CATEGORIES list, under: Embroidery / Full size (others’ designs) / Strawberry Fayre heart etui, or use the SEARCH BOX at the top of the blog, and search for ‘Strawberry Fayre’ to get a list of all the posts (but it’s in reverse order, sorry!).

I’d be interested to see images of how your project is progressing – please email large, clear, well-focused images to mail@janetgranger.co.uk  Please bear in mind that any images sent may be used in this blog and/or social media such as Facebook or Pinterest.

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