I’ve reached the point now with the ‘Celtic Spring’ design from Lavender and Lace where I only need to add beading to the cross stitch, and it’s finished! This one has taken me about 80 hours of cross stitching, so far, I reckon. It has a much larger area of cross stitch than the Celtic Autumn that I made a few years back, so either I am getting quicker at stitching, or I have mis-counted the hours this has taken me, as the ‘Celtic Autumn’ one took me about 90 hours altogether, I think.
This is ‘Celtic Spring’ with all the cross stitch finished. Nice, but definitely ‘missing something’.
So, I spent seven hours adding all the beads! I used a polyester cotton sewing thread to attach the beads, in a similar shade to the fabric – a light greeny-beige. This is so that I don’t have to keep changing my thread colour when I add different colours of beads – I can do the whole lot with one type of thread. You can hardly see the thread when all the beads are attached, anyway. I don’t use a beading needle, as they drive me mad when I’m trying to thread them, so I use a number 10 ‘betweens’ needle (for quilting, usually) – one of the John James ‘big eye’ ones.
There’s a good mix of shiny to matte beads in this design, which gives it a special quality.
The top of the panel, in particular, is heavily beaded.
I had been keeping this white plaster-effect frame for several years, just for this project. I bought it in Wilkinsons, for just £8!! I think it really sets off the purples. I mounted the stitching over the backing board supplied with the frame, but didn’t use the glass that came with it, or it would have squashed the beads. I used a layer of 2 ounce wadding under the fabric, to pad it a bit, and laced the fabric over the board with Perle 12 thread.
Here are my Celtic Autumn and Celtic Spring designs together, finally.
I don’t plan to display them like this, usually, though. My long-term plan is to have all five of the Celtic Ladies stitched (one for each season, plus Christmas), and display the relevant one for part of each year. That might take a while to get them all done, though, so for now, each one will be displayed for six months each.
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Janet Granger's Blog 
Beautiful work Janet, you inspire me to follow, I purchased a couple, and here they sit for I don’t know how long. I just don’t seem to move forward. My thrills appear to be in the purchasing. lol! Great work.
I’ve read.more than once recently, that buying stuff for your stash and *using* stuff from your stash are two completely separate hobbies! It’s certainly true in my case – I’ve got several lifetimes’ worth of stitching things!!
Your stitching is beautiful and the frame is perfect.
Thank you! I eventually started to stitch this one because I’d had the frame hanging around for several years, and I wanted to see it filled with something 🙂
Its so beautiful i also want to make it please share a full nd close it thanks
You’d need to buy the chart, you can’t copy it from a close up photo image – it would be too difficult, as well as against copyright.
She looks beautiful Janet, you’ve done an amazing job and I love your choice of frame. My five are hung with the seasons too, so on 1st June Spring will come down and replaced with Summer,
Thank you! I envy you having finished all five – the other three are definitely getting near the top of my ‘to do’ list!
Hi Janet,
Hi Janet,
I love your work, it is always so beautiful. I’ve also completed the four seasons. With not enough wall space to hang them all together, switching them out every three months works perfectly.
I just had a concern when I saw that you had mounted your piece on the board from the frame. I’ve always used an acid free foam core to avoid any issues with color changes over time. After all my time investment I want the colors to stay true. (I’m in the US so what you have available may be different.) Also, if you are interested in using glass to protect the piece, but don’t want to mat it you could always use some small pieces of scrap mat board between the lip of the frame and the piece to create a space which would give your beads “standing” space.
I hope I haven’t stepped on any toes or seemed to be criticizing your beautiful work. I’m more familiar with your dollhouse work which doesn’t need the framing, of course.
Pat
Hi Pat, Those are good ideas, and if people would like to do that, that’s fine. To be honest though, I don’t bother because (a) I’ve been stitching for over 50 years now (since I was four!), and even things I made when I was little are fine, so I feel that the ‘acid free’ thing may be a little over-hyped, and (b) if things don’t last long after I’m gone, I’m not too bothered as I won’t be here then! Another point is that in the UK we don’t have easy access to a lot of the products that are available in the US or Australia, for instance, so using ‘acid free foam core’ would be almost impossible to get unless I bought it from overseas, which would cost a fortune.
The benefit of my doll’s house stitching is that it’s always inside a house, so it gets protected from dust and fading from daylight, so in a way that’s easier to protect for the future :-
This is beautiful! I used to have those patterns but never had time to complete them.
Thank you 🙂 They do take a serious time investment, but they are lovely when they’re done.