beadworkers guild – The Indecisive Beader

International Beading Week 2024 – 27th July to 4th August

I’m a teeny bit early, but International Beading Week 2024 is almost upon us and I’m too excited to wait. IBW is run by the UK Beadworkers Guild, and you can find out more about the events and activities they and beaders all over the world have planned by visiting the website here, or join in on Facebook via the IBW Group here . As it’s the school holidays here in the UK my ability to join in events is pretty limited, so Social Media and that IBW Facebook in particular is probably where you’ll see me doing my IBW thing…….

I’m an IBW Permanent Ambassador, and in common with many other Ambassadors, designers and beaders I try to donate a pattern to the free pattern library every year. Sometimes it’s a simple charted design, sometimes a more complex project like last year’s I Love Heart Beads bead embroidery challenge. This year I’m back with straight beadweaving with a very silly new stitch developed for the 2024 theme of ‘Celebration’ – Balloon Dog Weave.

All celebrations need balloons, and the very best balloons are those fabulous sculptures made by twisting and shaping long thin balloons. The most glorious of these is undoubtedly the simple Balloon Doggy. Even Jeff Koons makes art from them – you can see one we spotted on the Grand Canal in Venice below, so this year I thought I’d try to make some in beads. Once I’d made an individual one for fun I started to see that they could be linked together to form a chain of doggies. Additional links to mirrored pairs stabilise the weave, and give you a whole pack of doggies to play with.

This isn’t a full tutorial (mine usually contain much more detail), it’s just a quick stitch guide/outline made as a gift from me to you, which you can play with as you will – do show me your balloon doggies in the IBW Facebook Group, or on my own social media – I’d love to see them please!

The new patterns will be launched on the IBW site at the beginning of IBW (Saturday 27th July), but mine is already available here for my special readers.

In addition, every year I try to offer a discount in my shops – this year I’m offering 20% off all tutorials in my Etsy and Payhip shops, and I may run some other offers on beads, crystals and other items during the week if time permits. The offers will run for the whole of IBW (which is actually 9 days, not 7) – so 27th July to 4th August. This is pretty much my main ‘sale’ of the year and the only time I offer this level of discount, so don’t miss out. Please note the discount will not start until the 27th (but don’t worry, tutorials don’t sell out!!).

Kākāpō Cape

Inspired by the rotund green endangered Kākāpō parrots of New Zealand, this feathered cape like collar celebrates Kākāpōs and their dark, moist forest floor habitat.

Parrot’s wing chrysocolla is surrounded by seed beads, pheasant feathers, beetle wings, pearls, crystals and sequins. Tufts of salvaged fur and peacock feathers replicate hairy tree fern trunks, and hand painted heat shrunk lutradur and tyvek add pebbly and mossy textures to the felt base, strengthened with net and backed with ultrasuede. Displayed flat, when worn the cape sits comfortably on the shoulders, the three pieces linked by reinforced seed pearl strands and bronze toggles.

This was my winning entry in the ‘Previous Winners’ class of the Beadworkers Guild annual challenge. The theme this year was ‘Fur & Feathers’ and I’m looking forward to seeing all of the entries in the various classes soon. The cape will now go on tour with the Guild for a year, visiting shows and exhibitions, before it flies home here, at which point I will work out how and where to display it. Follow me here for some more posts on how this was made, and/or on Facebook and Instagram for more pictures and in progress shots.

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.

Back to Nature

I’m please to be able to introduce ‘Back to Nature’, my entry in the ‘Previous Winner’s class of the Beadworkers Guild Annual Challenge 2020/21, and very happy to say that once again, I won.

The theme this year was ‘Save the Planet – Bead it Don’t Bin It’ and this was my Artist’s statement (which we send with our entries and is the only context we can supply to the judges):

‘Inspired by the layers and structure of soil profiles, this box explores the idea of nature taking over again, burying mankind’s waste and rubbish under layers of soil, moss and lichens. Salvaged circuit boards surrounded by the digital bytes of beadwoven delicas, are slowly being covered by layers of soil – beads, threads, pearls, reclaimed watch parts and recycled sequins. On the surface, embroidered and beaded mosses are cut through by Kintsugi repairs of bent and damaged scraps of leftover goldwork wires. Bursting down into the soil below, the gold brings new life and destroys what we’ve left behind. ‘

That’s the ‘public’ face of the piece, in reality it’s simply a really lovely embroidered fully hand made box, made by me over several months using only items from my stash, waste from my shop and household computer and packaging waste, and just about every technique I knew, could learn or could make up. I’ll try and get a blog post together in the next couple of days to tell you a little more here about how it came about.

Where Corals Lie

This trio of boxes were inspired by a beautiful poem by Richard Garnett, set to song by Elgar in his song cycle ‘Sea Pictures’. They were my entry in the Previous Winners category of this year’s Beadworker’s Guild Annual Challenge. The theme this year was ‘Fantasy’ and I’m happy to say that they won their class.

When I get some time I’ll tell you more about how I made them, and hopefully show some better pictures (these were taken in a tearing hurry one morning just before lockdown as I rushed to get them packed and sent before it became impossible) but for now here is the artist’s statement I submitted with the work to the judges, along with the text of the poem. To really understand though how as a singer Elgar‘s wonderful song inspired me to bead them, I’d recommend listening to it here.

A rose gold ship in the shallows betwixt shore and deep is joined by almost invisible sirens, whilst alongside a whale comes up from the depths to greet her ethereal friends, and the coral filled shallows are dotted with hidden holes for a mermaid’s treasures.

Techniques – bead embroidery, peyote, goldwork embroidery.

Materials – Miyuki and Czech beads; Swarovski crystals and pearls; vintage, new & hand cut sequins; goldwork wires; found coral; acrylic rods; hard felt; bentwood boxes.

Where Corals Lie – Richard Garnett

The deeps have music soft and low

When winds awake the airy spry,

It lures me, lures me on to go

And see the land where corals lie.

The land, the land, where corals lie.

By mount and mead, by lawn and rill,

When night is deep, and moon is high,

That music seeks and finds me still,

And tells me where the corals lie.

Yes, press my eyelids close, ’tis well,

But far the rapid fancies fly

To rolling worlds of wave and shell,

And all the land where corals lie.

Thy lips are like a sunset glow,

Thy smile is like a morning sky,

Yet leave me, leave me, let me go

And see the land where corals lie.

The land, the land, where corals lie.

Heather Kingsley-Heath – Fantasie

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to spend a weekend with the Beadworker’s Guild for their Great British Bead Show. I had a wonderful time, finally getting to meet people I’ve known electronically for a while, and getting to know even more lovely beaders. I took two one day classes, the first with Jean Power, which I’ll post about shortly, and the second with Heather Kingsley Heath, in which I made her beautiful Fantasie pendant.

I’ve admired Heather’s work for a while and own several of her books and patterns, and this was a lovely chance to work with her in person. This is a great piece to bead, and I was especially pleased with my colour choices – the new Swarovski Crystal Delite finish in Burgundy, and the dark and light blue shades of Swarovski Iridescent Pearls. I matched them with my usual Miyuki Duracoat silver, some matte dark blue (2075) and my new favourite Fuchsia Luster (1465L). I chose the pearls to match the blue sparkles from the Delite finish, and I must say I’m really pleased with the combination.

Fantasie, Heather Kingsley Heather, beaded by Sarah Cryer

I finished the pendant quite quickly after the class, and couldn’t even wait long enough to finish the complimentary beaded chain to wear it, so it’s currently hanging from my usual hand dyed silk cord. I hope to make the chain one day, but for now I do find the cords easy to wear as I can adjust easily from my ideal longer length back to a shorter hang to accomodate my horrible work lanyard and ID badge! This is a common colour palette for me to wear, so it’s had lots of use already.

If you’d like to learn more about the Great British Bead Show and the Beadworker’s Guild you can visit our website. And to learn more about Heather’s beautiful and inspiring work, visit her ‘Heatherworks‘ sites. I bought some more patterns from her in class, so you can expect to see some more of her designs here soon!