Shades of red

The next few days are not going to have much sewing time so I spent a little extra time with the beads today! I asked at my art quilt group if this red leaf should have beads. They were suprised that I even asked, assuming that I put beads on everything! But the consensus was that beads were needed, so I just had to comply.

It’s one of my little joys that you don’t notice the beads or individual stitches until you get close. The pieces need to draw you in and still have something to show you up close. I think I used 15 or more shades of red in this leaf, mingled randomly. When it came time to add beads, I auditioned almost that number of bead colors. I couldn’t believe my eyes, though, when one of the containers had a collection called “ruby rainbow” that had just what I needed! The beads are slightly iridescent and in every shade of red that I used on the leaf. Perfect. No indecision once I saw that container!

A little bit of sparkle is always good!