Embroidery – The Indecisive Beader

Yarn packs

At last I’ve found time to put together my yarn packs – I’ve been dreaming about doing these for so long! These are a tidy version of the skeins I make for myself when I’m doing some heavy embroidery or weaving so I don’t have to lug around a giant bag of yarn balls – have a look at my Instagram for some examples. There are some gorgeous yarns in here, some have been in my stash since my teens, others are newer and brighter! The roving yarns in particular are scrumptious and make the best french knots, and there are some super brand yarns in here such as Rowan and Wool and the Gang.

There are three colour combos at the moment with more to come if these sell (I’m happy to take requests, although this is a destash project so please don’t tempt me to buy more yarn). ‘Soft’ is ice cream colours with a dash of retro aqua soft greys (the grey super chunky roving in this one is gorgeous and nearly didn’t make it in!). ‘Bold’ is based round a multicolour roving yarn, so picks up the navy, chartreuse, reds, purples and deep pinks, with a few more colours thrown in. And ‘Bright’ (my favourite predictably) is all my favourite neon pinks (who knew there were so many neon pinks), lime, yellow, aqua and a little bit of navy and white for balance.

Each pack has 14 yarns, 2m of each, so plenty for a small weaving project or several embroidery hoops – available now in my Etsy shop.

And don’t forget I also have some gorgeous crystals available at the moment . For the beadweavers I have the lovely etched flower crystals which come in a 14mm or 10mm chaton shape (the 14mm work really well in projects asking for 14mm rivolis).

Or if you’re an embroiderer or bead embroiderer I now have a selection of crystals in sew on settings – either pear shapes in glass crystals (more colours coming soon), or for a more unusual finish these new Indian acrylic stones in a variety of shapes. I wouldn’t normally use an acrylic stone but the textured metallic finish on these is irresistible.

And for everyone I have my favourite 2mm cup chain – two types – metal settings with crystal or crystal AB, or self coloured settings in a range of colours (the black is brilliant for outlining shapes). I use these lots in bead embroidery as they’re lovely and delicate – not too ‘in your face’!

Selling on Folksy

Did you know that I actually sell some of my finished beadwork and embroideries?

I have a little shop on the UK site Folksy with earrings, a couple of necklaces and some of my embroidered mini hoops – you can view it here. The range is deliberately small to keep it fresh and current, but I also run commissioned work through Folksy, so if you see something you like there or on my social media do feel free to contact me and request custom colours etc.

Folksy is a bit like Etsy but much smaller. They’re deliberately fussier about handmade only and it’s a sensible, easy to browse size as it is just for UK makers (although I can of course still ship worldwide from there). Best of all it has a small, caring, supportive and innovative management team and has a wonderful community of friendly makers which I love. That community take an active interest in promoting the site, spotting non-handmade shops and supporting other sellers with advice and help through the forums and Facebook group. The management team support makers with advice and help, and consult about improvements – Doug the IT guy is legend, and Camilla and her colleagues are experienced makers themselves who constantly feed us useful advice about selling and running our handmade businesses. They actively curate really lovely gift guides, themes of the day and highlight interesting pieces, and run a fascinating blog with ‘makers of the week’ (I was one back in 2014 – read the posts here – very out of date but fun to look back at where I came from).

I’ve been selling there for more years than I care to mention and it’s a lovely place to sell and shop for beautiful handmade items. I’ll probably always have my Etsy shop for supplies and tutorials but it’s very hard to be seen as a maker rather than a supplier there as it’s simply so huge and geographically diverse, so I find Folksy suits me really well for finished items.

Pop over and have a look at my works there using the link below, and do take time to browse some of the other lovely shops too. I’ve listed a few of my favourites below:

Susie West – stunning ‘travel posters’ – we have three of these already and are trying to collect one for everywhere we have lived (we have a little way to go!).

Claire Gent – amazing aluminium and silver jewellery. I’ve lusted after Claire’s work for years!

Holme & Moss – I’ve got one of their classic hairbands in my basket at the moment.

Eynonymous – I have a beautiful yellow silk hairband from Eddie which I wear a lot – she designs and prints beautiful textiles.

Clare Lloyd – modern polymer clay and silver jewellery.

Tanith Rouse – eye-catching contemporary coloured aluminium jewellery.

Jenny Newall – gorgeous stained glass birds and super cute egg earrings.

Sue Trevor – contemporary machine embroidery and fabric sculptures – I’ve bought lots of Sue’s work as gifts for the textile lovers in my family.

The Whimsical Marbler – lovely marbled papers, some in great bright colours for a more modern take.

Clare Buchanan – really eye-catching bright wovens.

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.