Month: July 2021

International Beading Week

International Beading Week starts tomorrow (24th July) and runs until August 1st, and as a Guest Ambassador, member of the Beadworker’s Guild Social Media Team and all around IBW fan I’ve been busy getting ready.

As you know I’ve donated a chart which you can find on the IBW site or in my Free Charts section, and from 25th July until 1st August I will be offering 20% off all tutorials in my Etsy shop (no code needed, tutorials only, please note that this doesn’t start until tomorrow – 24th July).

I should say now that we’ll be taking a much needed holiday though for bulk of the week, so I’ll be closing my shops for everything other than those digital download tutorials (which run happily without me needing to post stuff), but fret not, the beads, cabochons, crystals and goldwork wires will be back on August 9th. During that time I will still be beading, as it’s time for Jean Power’s Secret Beadalong, so watch my social media to see how I’m getting on.

Whilst you’re there, why not join the IBW Facebook group, or have a look at the IBW Facebook Page and the lovely Beadworker’s Guild Instagram account and see what we’ve been working so hard on behind the scenes. This year we have a theme for International Beading Week (IBW) to celebrate the positive mental health impacts that beading has with the tagline: ‘HANGING IN THERE’. We will have daily prompts to help you get involved on social media and throughout the week we will be sharing tips, ideas, free patterns and beaders’ stories on our channels – and we would love to read your stories too!

Please help us spread the word about beading by tagging the Beadworkers Guild in all of your social media posts and use the hashtag #beadingweek.

Jelly Tutorial

My Jelly Tutorial, which was published in a summary version in last year’s Beadworker’s Guild Journal (86) is now available in my Etsy shop as a full 18 page tutorial.

Jelly uses a variety of bead embroidery, and goldwork embroidery techniques, including seeding, stacking, goldwork (or optional backstitch) and beaded edging to make a statement pendant, brooch or even a beautiful ornament, and she’d best suit intermediate bead weavers or bead embroiderers, or experienced embroiderers looking to learn some bead embroidery techniques. If you’re a beginner with some success with bead embroidery looking to stretch yourself this is probably easier than Squidy (another member of my sea creature family below), but not as easy as Sunstar.

She’s a really fun make, I’ve made four so far with beads picked out for one more already, and I hope you really enjoy her. Full bead lists are available as usual here if you’d like to check what’s in your stash before committing to a pattern purchase, and the tutorial itself is available here for instant PDF download.

International Beading Week

As part of the IBW social media team  for several years it’s lovely to be able to show my support as a designer as well by becoming an IBW Ambassador. Beading along with others is such a pleasure, whether it’s done in person or remotely, and I’m looking forward to seeing the results all of the events and activities the IBW/Beadworker’s Guild team work so hard behind the scenes to prepare for you every year.    This year’s International Beading Week runs from July 24th – August 1st, and as well as working away with my lovely colleagues on the Guild’s Social Media team I’ll of course be beading along with the wonderful annual Jean Power Summer Secret Beadalong.

As an Ambassador I’m proud to donate a design (or two or hopefully when I have time, three) to the event – here is the first one, a charted brick stitch and fringe piece which is available as a free PDF here. It’s also available via the IBW section of the Beadworker’s Guild website alongside many other wonderful free patterns from other Ambassadors and Beaders – have a look at the amazing selection.

This piece can be adapted to change the length, colours or overall use but at its’ core is the 12 colour spectrum of the IBW logo and a rainbow. The rainbow has come to mean a lot symbolically in the UK over the last year or so, so seemed an appropriate choice, although making curves out of things which want to run straight was a challenge – quite a few rejected versions here:

It’s also worth saying that this chart was created with Beadographer, which is a wonderful new chart/design tool. Prior to starting using this I’d never really got on with charted designs because I found the planning process inhibiting creatively. However I’m sure you can see from my recent work that Beadographer has allowed me to overcome that bias and I’m now embracing charting with the tool on my laptop (or even better on my iPad with an Apple Pencil) as an alternative way of creating with beads, so thank you to Leah and William for a super, very easy to use creative tool.