The Stargate

“So, what did you do over the last year?”

“Oh, well, I took a couple of out-of-state trips…went to a few weddings…moved house…was on crutches for a bit…and sewed hundreds of tiny blue beads onto a circle of cotton.”

This bead-embroidered Stargate was made for a friend as a wedding gift.  Her wedding was last December.  I just finished the Stargate in October.  I might possibly have bit off a little more than I could chew.

I probably should have realized this when just sourcing all the beads took me a month.

…But, in my defense, The Stargate (I think of it now with a capital “T” and “S”) ended up being a bit more elaborate than I had anticipated.

Credit for the original idea goes to Jori, friend-turned-housemate (a lot happens in a year).  Credit for the increasing elaboration of the design goes to Shaun.  Credit for graciously accepting a very late wedding gift goes to R & S.  Bill for loss of eyesight is from my optometrist.

And now for the crafty nitty-gritty:

The Stargate was embroidered entirely freehand (no pattern, except for a visual reference).  I wanted the frame to become part of the object itself, so The Stargate is framed in a 7″ vintage metal embroidery hoop.  The “event horizon” (the swirly blue part) contains six different shades of seed beads, and three shades of Swarovski crystals.  Unfortunately–to acknowledge the concerns of purists–I could not quite fit the correct number of glyphs on The Stargate, due to space and ratio issues.  Shaun and Jori assure me that this is okay.  Shaun also convinced me not to attempt drawing the glyph symbols onto the beads, which is just as well.

I mean, those crazy purists, right?

 

I love you, Reeb! Happy wedding!  🙂