New Project, Could be a Long One

I laid this out and got started today, on a project that will take me through an upcoming trip to Mendocino. The image is from a photo I found on Astronomy Picture of the Day, an amazing 360 degree fisheye shot of the night sky and a forest with dark hills and city lights in the background.  The photographer is Luc Perrot.

The circle of the image is 5.5 inches in diameter. I asked my husband the Math Guy to recall the formula for the area of a circle, and he tells me "Pi Are Squared" which after some clarification, I figure means that we're talking something north of 75 square inches here. Really? Yow! That's a lot of beads if I go for solid beading all over it.

But I had intended from the first to let the black ultrasuede background be part of the picture, only beading those areas that I want to not be black.  This is pretty heavy ultrasuede, part of the package of scraps I got a while ago from Fields Fabrics. So I won't need an additional stiffener for it. It will hold shape well by itself.

This is the palette of beads I chose. I'll be adding more, as I stopped by Beads Beads in Orange today and found some that will add quite a bit to the project. 

I also got a few different packages of beading needles. I was surprised on the spiral bracelet how much difference it made when I switched from a size 10 to a 13. Since the teeny part of the spiral is 15/0 beads, the smaller needle made pulling through much easier, rather than having to use a pliers to grab it, as I had to do with the size 10 needle. You'd think by this time I'd know that the right tool makes any job easier, faster and more pleasurable.

The final plan for this embroidered piece is going to include sewing it onto midnight blue ultrasuede, cut and sewn to fit over my old Kindle cover. I may further embellish the cover material around the black-backed embroidered portion. And I may decide to try to sell it.

In order not to infringe for my own profit on the copyright of Luc Perrot, the photographer of the amazing image, I will use his photo as inspiration only, and not copy the image literally.  I will adapt and change it to make it my own, and continue to give him credit as the inspiration. 

I will keep my faithful readers updated on progress on this project, as I always think it's interesting to view other artists' work in progress and you don't get to see a lot of that in blogs. 

I'm planning some other cool spirals too.  So stay tuned.