Frustration

After yesterday afternoon's beading session, it's a minor miracle that I actually have something to show you today!

I reached the edge of the base and was quite pleased with it.  The beadwork sat nice and flat to the glass and the last row of beads just peeked out over the edge.  Perfect.  Until I tried to peyote off them, down around the rim.  As I was beading I was pulling the thread tight to try and pull the beadwork in around the side of the base to 'capture' it in a sort of bezel.  The sides taper inwards and I hoped that that would be enough to hold the work in place.  No such luck!  As I worked my way around, the bit I'd already done kept peeling off and wrinkling up.  Despite trying to hold it in place with pegs while I worked I finally had to admit defeat and think of something else.

After chatting to some friends I decided to try a kind of netting instead of the peyote and added 3-bead picots all around the edge.  I connected the picots together and pulled the row in tight.  This worked much better but it was still able to slip back off so I repeated the process to take the beads just over onto the underside of the base and finally worked a single row of peyote for stability.  Success! :oD

As you can see I also added some red seed beads to the edge, in two sizes depending on the size of the gap.

I'd like to add more 'jewels' towards the edge but I don't want to overpower it so I'm unsure whether to do that or not.  I will be adding some to the stem though and I'm hoping to get that done this morning.  This afternoon we're off to Anfield so I won't get any done then.