For this purpose, we will need:
Seed beads TOHO:
Blue #108BD, 11/0 and 15/0
Grey #176, 11/0 and 15/0
Silver Grey #PF565, 11/0
Sew on Swarovski rhinestones (drops):
12 mm color Light Turquoise (blue) — 1
18 mm color Light Turquoise — 1
28 mm color Light Turquoise — 1
12 mm color Crystal (white) — 1
Round black bead 4 mm for the eye — 1 .
Brooch clasp (pin).
Felt, leather.
Threads (dark grey, light grey, black) and needles.
Glue
Pencil, scissors, paper, cardboard.
Take a piece of grey felt
On a paper, draw a pattern of our brooch, which is a whale. Everyone sees a whale different, so you can end up with quite a fantasy whale. Cut the pattern out and transfer it onto felt.
Sew rhinestones on tail, fin and eye. We sewed blue rhinestones with a dark grey thread, and a white rhinestone with a light grey thread. Black eye is sewn with a black thread ? We will not need black thread anymore, so you can put it away.
Let’s start embroidering. First, we embroider a belly with grey beads of size 11 with a light grey thread.
Following the contour of our pattern, we embroider with a back stitch.
Fasten the thread on the backside, bring the needle to the right side, and string a bead. Sew it on, and right after using a needle on the backside move one bead back, then bring the needle to the right side and again through already sewn bead, and just after it string the second bead and sew it. Then, in the same order, come back and put the thread again through it, etc. Therefore, the thread comes through each bead twice, which allows them to be fastened more securely and evenly.
Now embroider the contour on back with blue beads (size 11/0) and a dark grey thread. The tail’s end and the fin near rhinestones are left without beadwork.
Sew the big blue rhinestone onto the back with a dark grey thread, and sew beads inside the holes of the rhinestone.
Then, we embroider the belly with grey beads along the contour in straight lines, with the same feather stitches. With this, we simulate a striped whale belly. In the tiniest gaps, in corners where beads of size 11 cannot fit anymore, we fill the space with beads of size 15/0 of the same color.
Now we pass to embroidering of the main part – the whole body of the whale. Sew blue beads in a chaotic manner. Sew beads one by one, every time in different direction related to the previous one, so that all beads would “look” in all directions. Just as with the belly, tiny gaps and in corners where beads of size 11 cannot fit, we sew beads of size 15/0 of the same color, so that to fill the gaps optimally.
The embroidery is ready.
The next stage: we carefully cut out the embroidery along the contour, leaving 1-2 mm from the edge.
Now we take a piece of cardboard and cut out the same pattern, but 3 mm smaller from the edges (these will be used for tacks in edging), and glue it to the backside. We have hidden seams and knots and compacted our brooch.
According to the form of our embroidered item, we cut out the leather pattern 1 mm bigger on the edge for the backside of the brooch.Mark the place for the pin.
Make slashes and put a pin.
Glue the leather preparation together with a pin to our embroidery.
15. The final stage of work is overseaming. For this, we use silver grey seed beads 11/0 and a dark grey thread.
Double-fold a thread, run through a needle eye with two ends, so that a loop occurs at the other end. Put a needle on the backside (stich around 2-3 mm high) and run a needle through a loop – the thread is fastened.
String one bead.
Again run a needle on the backside, make a stitch 3mm from the previous one; when a needle is run to the right side, put it through a bead from the bottom up. Fasten. The bead now lies with its hole up.
String the second bead and in a similar way make a stitch on the backside, run a needle to the right side and through a bead from the bottom up; then repeat with the third bead, etc.
We finished overseaming the edge, now the thread end should be hidden among the embroidered beads.
