Beading

OK, I know all about beading and how to do it …… not. I went to the library a couple of years ago and picked up several books about beading as I thought it could be something I could really enjoy doing.

On impulse, I popped into a local shop and bought 3 tubes of beads to get me started (2 seed / 1 bugle ) together with some nylon thread. I searched and searched through the books and finally, on the internet, arrived at the EagleSpirit website.

Wonderful – this is what I had been looking for – patterns and ideas that I could ask for – the galleries of finished works was really inspirational.  Unfortunately that website was not available when I just checked (March 2011) – but hopefully they are just busy re-designing it.

So … sort of following the instructions (using 5 beads across instead of 4) I managed to create part of a necklace. The picture above shows my first ever piece of beading …. lovely.

Since then I have produced many items of jewellery including bracelets and earrings – I love beading. There are so many colours of beads that even using the same pattern, a necklace looks totally different to one produced previously.

One problem I have living in this part of the country, is in obtaining different types of beads – to be honest one local store (Chadds) did have some Gutterman seed beads available, but since that shop was taken over by Palmers, they no longer stock the seed beads I like to work with.

Just as well this internet thing is up and running – eh?

The pictures above and below have used the Oglala pattern – showing just how different one pattern can be.   The picture below contains various beads and oddments – making it really unique.

The picture below uses a Russian pattern I found.  Very nice, but quite time consuming to make.  Worth it though when you see the finished item.

I love the leaf pattern as used in the chokers below.  Again, the picture shows just how different colours used.