My first Beaded whimsey

This is the first of what I plan to be a series of Beaded Whimsies. This term was apparently used in Victorian times for bead embroidered animals and the like and is also, or possibly mostly, applied to similar items made by Native Americans. I;ve only done a little research on the name, so please advise me otherwise if I am wrong!

This is totally my own design, bead embroidered onto some colourful patchwork material (which you can only see on the back, which is unbeaded). I am new to bead embroidery and find it easiest to do on a flat piece of fabric, so I did the embroidery on one piece of the fabric, then folded in the raw edges and whip stitched the two together, right side out because you can;t really turn beaded stuff. Then I stuffed it with polyfill, finished off the whip stitching and covered all the seams with enough beading to hide them. I know most people do the doll/thing first and then bead the stuffed item, but I am finding that really hard to manipulate right now.

I am planning a series of these. The current one in progress has stalled while I knit things, though. I really loved doing this!! The beads are a mixture of glass and plastic beads, nothing exotic or expensive, all from Lincraft I think.