Crows In The Corn

Day 9: It looks like a pair of thieves have found the corn the farmer's wife was gathering for her harvest display! These tiny cobs are beaded, and for a sense of size, I've included an inset showing them with a penny for scale. With any of the needle-arts, I tend to gravitate toward the "fine" (size) end of the spectrum, preferring to knit with #5 or smaller needles, to crochet with a #10 or smaller hook, to tat with the finest thread available, and in beadwork, I never use anything larger than a #11 seed bead. The corn was made with #13 beads, even smaller yet.

Each cob has eight horizontal rows worked in square stitch over a pigskin core which was cut at one end to form the husks. Two decreasing rows were added after the main cob was completed in order to make the tapered tip.

I have made a larger version of these using #8 beads which are about the same size as a kernel of  "Indian corn." I worked them over a felt-padded raffia core, with raffia for the husks. They look real enough to eat!