Gwenyth's Dragonfly Needlebook

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This needlebook was commissioned by Princess Amber as a gift to Lady Gwenyth Rhiannon of the Sea. It is based on Lady Gwenyth's heraldic device, which can be seen here, towards the bottom of the page.

This is my second piece of beaded embroidery, and my third needlebook. I did the embroidery on linen lined with muslin. Since I had worked my first piece on a hoop, I decided to experiment, and worked the material on a slate frame. Once completed, I cut a piece of felt to the desired size, and stitch the embroidery and felt together to make a needlebook. I used beads along the outer edge for a bit of decoration, and two bits of ribbon so that the needlebook can be tied shut.

The dragonfly body is done in clear silver-lined bugle beads, and the wings are solid silver metal Delica beads. The opaque purple beads are size 11/0 Japanese glass beads. The glass beads that I used on the trim are size 8/0 clear beads, and size 11/0 purple beads. The finish on the purple trim beads is not very historically accurate, but it was very fun, and I thought that Lady Gwenyth would enjoy it.

For this embroidery, I did a mixture of techniques, although this piece was done predominantly in the medieval technique. The only part done in the modern bead embroidery style was the dragonfly body. For the bugle beads, I would only add one bead at a time. The wings of the dragonfly and the background were done entirely in the medieval technique. For the background, I usually laid down two rows of beads at a once, and couched both rows together.

I discovered a few things from doing this piece. First and foremost, the better the tension on your fabric, the easier it is to stitch. The slate frame worked extremely well for this style of embroidery. The tension was consistently tight, which couldn't be said for the hoop. Plus, the design that I was working was rectangular, and the slate frame was rectangular, so it worked well for this particular project as well. Next, I found that I liked the medieval technique of laying and couching. Although it is not as durable as the modern technique, I liked how the embroidery laid flat instead of buckling like the red roses project did.

My next piece in this series of five would be the gold rose needlebook.