Circle #4

The last of the January circles is this little fourth one. This one does not have as many beads as the previous three circles did. It could have had more added to it...but the heart beads that are there seemed to fill the space pretty well, so I decided not to add any more.

 The first seam is #37 in my book. It has little dots in the design (for French Knots) and I've place the glass heart beads there instead. Now, usually I gravitate towards just putting seed beads or Rocaille beads in place of the knots in the design...but, I just thought that this little heart beads looked "happy" on this seam. Now, I'm thinking that I've missed some opportunities in other seams by not considering something "other than" seed beads!

 The second seam is #130, a combination seam that uses the chevron stitch as a base...then straight stitches to finish off the seam. Beads could be easily added to this seam...especially at the ends of the little straight stitch "arrow". And, if there was more space...I would have done so I'm thinking. But the intersection of the seams in such a small area was busy enough. So, I left off more beads.

The last seam is #131, also a combination seam that uses the chevron stitch as a base. However, since this seam was to be adjacent to another chevron stitch...I adjusted the size of the chevron and used a template that had the "peaks and valleys" of the stitch closer together. This seam is at the very edge of the circle, so I also changed colors and added a bit of surprise with the yellow thread color. It helps to pull your eye from the hearts in the #130 seam and carry your line of sight all the way across the circle.