The clunky piece of cardboard in the pic is the loom on which those bracelets were made - no need for fancy looms to weave with beads. They do exist and they're lovely, but I just never bothered. Likewise special beading needles, I just haven't got into them, have enough embroidery needles of all sizes to find ones that will work for the beads.
So I'll demo how to weave with beads, a bit of a mystery until you see how it's done -- and I will start a piece tomorrow so that people can see what I'm up to -- and I'll talk about using beads in embroidery. The pieces I'm bringing are more embroidery than beads, to show how beads can be the feature but don't have to be the whole show. And I have a piece in progress which is currently dyed and goldworked, but beads will feature in it, too.
If you're local, do come! this will be fun. And bring questions on all things embroidery and textiles. And I will attempt to bring supplies of beads without dramatically dropping the lot as I did at home a while back, creating bead soup.
This AIR is really making me revisit a lot of interesting skills, and enjoy them all over again. I particularly get a kick when people come and decide they'd like to try a skill, maybe even with their kids over the summer. If visitors do half what they have in mind, their summer will be a madhouse of stitching, dyeing, beading, weaving, crocheting art and knitting it, too. All good.
Somewhere I've got a piece of woven beadwork a friend created for the bottom of my guitar strap about a hundred years ago. The next time I come across it, I'll take a picture :)
ReplyDeleteyou are certainly sharing lots of talents with the visitor as you say so good when they decide to have a go themselves
ReplyDeleteBead soup - how well I know how that recipe goes! Hard to believe it's week six already.
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