Main Bead Embroidery Kit Nearest and dearest

“Nearest and dearest” shows a young mother holding her child in a blooming yard beside an old cottage. It is a warm, homely piece with a distinctly Ukrainian mood.

What the picture shows

The woman wears a red headscarf and an embroidered shirt with black and red patterning, and holds a fair-haired toddler in a pale blue smock; over her skirt she wears a red checked wrap and a green apron with flowers. Behind them stands a whitewashed cottage under a tall thatched roof, painted with a band of flowers, and a yellow field warms in the sun beyond. The foreground belongs to the flowers: pink hollyhocks, peonies, asters, small daisies, pumpkins and a sunflower by the wattle fence. Beadwork covers the figures, the clothing, the folk patterns and the front row of flowers, while the sky, the field and the thatch stay as print — which is why the faces and the embroidered shirt read most clearly. Pink hollyhocks climb almost to the thatch beside the cottage on the right, and a striped pumpkin and a few cut flowers lie by the fence on the left.

What is in the kit

• Artist canvas with the full-colour pattern printed on it — no chart to follow on a screen
• Czech Preciosa beads, 19 colours
• Beading needles
• Instructions and finishing guide

Specifications

• Finished size: 230×320 mm (9.05×12.6 in)
• Beads: approx. 8,442
• Bead colours: 19
• Difficulty: above average
• Base: artist canvas

The vertical piece is compact and suits a living room, a bedroom or a room decorated in folk style, and it holds up well in a dense arrangement of several pictures. Gallery finishing is possible — the canvas stretches over a bar and hangs without a frame.