Evolution of a design

 Working through the design for the morning glory, I think have finally gotten it right(?) Each time I make a flower I think it looks great until I make the next one incorporating the changes I thought of after the previous attempt. This time I didn't use any extra increase in the brick stitch. I used the same beads as last time, size 10 vintage French beads and mixed brands of Japanese beads with a few Czech thrown in. 

For the leaf I used a Miyuki green lined green size 8 triangle bead, they didn't seem as flashy as the silver lined beads were. 

Now that I have done some bead "sketches" I am ready to work on the finished piece. I am envisioning vines and flower buds and maybe a few seed pods. I like to pick examples of the flowers I am beading so I can reference them as I work, fortunately morning glories bloom until there is a frost. I usually mix other flowers into a necklace to accent the primary blossoms; I saw some nice asters and snapdragons at the lake the other day that might be interesting. The praying mantis that lives on the porch with the morning glory would be cool, but that's a project in itself.

Morning glory update

After finishing the first morning glory flower I took a trip to the local bead store to check out their collection of size 11 purples. They only carry Miyuki seed beads at that store, and the colors are always different than the Toho beads I mail order.  While I was there I picked up some matte silver lined green triangle beads in two shades of green which I am hoping to use for leaves.

My original idea for the morning glory still seems valid after creating the first flower- the beadwork is not floppy and the flower has a nice ruffle which gives it some dimension.

I think the next time I will try without the increase that made such a deep ruffle, and also build up a tube on the back side of the flower. I like the way flower is flat enough to easily attach to a base, but maybe it will look better from the side view if it has the shape of the real flower.

Once I had made the flower I felt compelled to search online for other people's take on beaded morning glories. I found two popular patterns that had been published in books. Diane Fitgerald's book The Beaded Garden has a flower that is created using brick stitch that is quite attractive. I found an example of it by Jann Block. Another book with a morning glory design is Barbara L. Grangier's Dimensional Flowers, Leaves and Vines. This one also uses brick stitch. A beautiful example of this flower was made by Svetlana Eltsova. There are so many talented bead artists who share photos of their work online. I am always amazed and inspired by them.