Sparkly Fish Embroidery

I really enjoyed embroidering these sparkly fish!  They are embellished with sequins, beads and metallic floss.  

Valentine's Day Heart

I love adding sequins to my embroidery projects.  {example  example} 
Recently, I decided to try using just sequins to fill an entire motif - in this case, one of the hearts from the Be Mine Valentine embroidery pattern.

For the sequins, I selected small {8 mm} size cup sequins in pink. I stitched them in place with sewing thread.  

First, I outlined the heart.  I started at the tip and centered the first sequin.  I found that the best looking results came from partially layering the the sequins.  You can see that each new sequin is on top of the previous sequin:

I went all the way around and then started the next row, following the outline...and so on... 

until it was completely filled in.  What do you think?  I love the sparkly result!!

Mermaid Embroidery Part Two

I finished up the stitching on my mermaid and dolphin project.  
I am really happy with the result!
As you can see in this close up I used pearl beads and sequins in the mermaids hair 

and to accentuate the ocean waves

I like the sparkle and dimension these added to this project.

Ballerina

There is a new embroidery pattern packet in my Etsy shop!  The title is Ballerina.  I stitched this from the packet:

On this particular pattern, there are fench knots embellishing the curvy lines.  You may have noticed that instead of french knots, I sewed on sequins!  I have a question for anyone that has experience sewing on sequins - which way should the sequin sit on the fabric - convex or concave?  I did mine convex because I like the way it looks, but I was wondering if there is any advantage  / disadvantage either way? I sewed these on with a bead on top of each sequin:

I have also stitched a few ballerinas:

I will be sharing some more about how I used these sequins and beads in another post - as well as many more of my projects from this pattern packet!  Here is what the pattern packet looks like: