I should have been working on any number of other things, but I decided to play with reproducing some passementerie appliques I had seen online. I think thise are lovely, but they really inspired me to try it on my own.  I went and picked up some braided cord, nylon thread, and some beads. 

Starting here, and with everything pinned to a piece of cardboard, I went about recreating my pieces of passementerie.  The beads really tell you where the cords go, so I just kept wrapping my cord and stitching the coils together until I had my three "leaves".

I then went about stitching them together, to create the base design.

After getting all the curly bits pinned in placed and stitched, the final piece is completely stand alone.  I love the end result.  I would like to find more images of this type of applique to make more.  I like the idea of offering them on costuming that I am making. Particularly wraps, dolmans, and coats.

Unfortunately my beads are too big, so I will need to shopping for more.  I do really like the iris coloring on the black, like the original, but I think just black in a different shape would be nice, too.  I will have to see what I find.  I am not much of a bead person, but these are small enough to not drive me insane, and instead of stitching every bead, I will just couch my strands.  I think will work better. 

There you go, this was fun, and fairly quick.  I want to make one more so I have a pair of opposites, then decide where to use them!

The rest of the pictures are HERE on my Flickr site. :-)

Cheers!

Update

on 2011-02-17 03:38 by Kelly Cochran

Okay! So I found new beads that worked perfectly.  They are 1.8mm Dk Blue Iris cubes.  It took an entire container which is 14g.  I have no idea how many individually that is, but it was A LOT!  This part of the process took forever!  My thoughts of offering this for sale, is a little shot, unless people do not mind paying $100 for unique hand-made, beaded appliques.  The hours involved were worth the effort though.  It is SURE pretty! :-)

Here are a couple of in process pictures.

It was hard to get pictures of the iridescence.  I can't wait to put this on something!  And because I am a complete glutton for punishment, I decided this piece needed some movement so I made a 20 strand bugle tassel to explode out of the coil. 

Two of these on the back of a dolman or on a reticule...SEXY! 

Here are a couple shots of the finished piece and its back side.