Maire's Block

The final stitch on the final seam of the final block of my first Round Robin is finished. I have completed my work on Maire's block.

As there were so many seams left (9 in total, although, granted, several of them were very small seams), I did 4 seams instead of the usual 2 we had been doing with the RR. Here is the completed block (except for the seams left for Maire to do, of course).
All the work I did was done in the threads Maire provided with the block.
 

The first seam I did is a row of bullion roses with ivory pearl centres, and a stem stitch border underneath with bullion rosebuds. The second seam is a row of wisteria, done in blush ivory beads, and pale pink and medium pink French knots, on stem stitch branches with detached chain leaves.
These two seam were my original ideas for this block when I first saw the naked block pic at the beginning of the RR. The first thing I thought when I saw it was "roses and wisteria". Of course, wisteria is normally purple, but when the block arrived, Maire stated in her booklet that she wanted the work to be in the colours of the block, and there was no purple in the block. Fortunately, I have seen pink wisteria.

For the third seam I did this wonderful beaded Buttonholed Cable Chain from Sharon B's TAST. The buttonholed cable chain was done in a lovely variegated fine purl thread, and  "antique gold" seed beads were added to the centres of the chain. Then straight stitch tripods (I don't know what else to call them) with the "antique gold" seed beads were done underneath, to extend and accentuate the border. The only other beads on the block are the pretty, tiny gold beads in Rose Anne's tatted lace, on the top right, so by putting this beaded seam on the bottom left, it kept the balance.

The final seam is a row of feather stitch, with each terminus topped with a beaded cast-on flower. These are terribly fiddly and time-consuming to do, but I just really love them. Normally I use a much smaller seed bead for the centre, but I used the same ivory pearls to cast the flowers onto that I used in the roses border, to give balance to the piece. That way the two seams with pearls are bottom right(ish) and top left(ish), nicely opposing the two beaded seams. I like how they turned out with the pearl centres.

 
Maire's block was a joy to work on, being all in silks, and such lovely delicate colours. It will head on home to Maire on Thursday.

I have enjoyed this - my first - RR, and learned a lot from it. Thank you to all the ladies who were a part of it.