smooth purl – The Indecisive Beader

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet here, but what with Christmas and the current lockdown we’ve been a bit busy. We’ve been in lockdown pretty much since October (with a couple of small gaps) and as schools have been closed in the UK since Christmas both of the boys are at home. Whilst they’re supplied with ‘remote learning’ by their lovely school, they both need extensive support with this (particularly the 7 year old) and as we’re both working, Mr Indecisive Beader and I are rather pushed for time, so blogging has had to take a back seat!

I have been able to do some beading though – since we can’t go out I can at least bead on the evenings I’m not having to work to make up for the time I’ve spent home schooling in the day. As I’ve mainly be working on my Beadworker’s Guild Challenge piece I don’t have anything I can show though……

I’ve also been able to keep my shop fully open this time round, which means lots of goldwork wires going out to locked down beaders and embroiderers around the UK and further afield, so I’ve had to restock and have snuck in some new colours of smooth purl. I’ve also introduced some more colour packs – just nice combos chosen by me as I think they work together, and these represent a discounted price on buying each colour separately.

Individual 1mm smooth purl packs in 2g increments are available here.

And the packs, which contain 2g each of 4 colours (8g total) are available here:

The new colours are Burnt Orange, Copper Peach, Matte Pink, Mid Turquoise, Golden Brown and Black, and I introduced Fuchsia, Matte Red, Pale Bronze, a greater selection of Golds, Parrot Green, Jade, Navy and Matte Silver to my original selection late last year. That makes 26 colours (I have my eye on a few more but I might stop at 30…..).

The new packs are Pretty in Pink, Fire, Heavy Metal and Ocean. Etsy only gives me room for 10, so the Ocean is not currently listed, so just give a yell if you are interested in that one and I can set up a custom listing. I’m also happy to do custom packs to suit your individual taste or projects, and can price for larger quantities if I have them available – just contact me here or through Etsy ‘contact seller’.

I also have some check purl ready to photograph so I’ll try and do something with that soon as it will be lovely for Squidy’s fins.

The eagle eyed among you may have spotted that I’m now selling Goldwork wires in my Etsy shop. I have a variety of colours of 1mm smooth purl, 1mm and 1.25mm pearl purl and some new and very pretty 1.5mm spiral purl. They’re all lovely quality enamelled copper wires from India, where they’re used in beautiful embroidered fabrics, and I use them myself in my bead embroidery work by employing a mix of goldwork and bead embroidery techniques, mainly (but not always) working on hard felt. Here are some examples:

I’ve also put together some 20g mixed bargain packs which are ideal for having a play with these wires . They contain a mix of different complimentary colours and textures/types of smooth, check, spiral and cut purl, so you’ll be able to work them into a range of goldwork techniques and styles, and hopefully are very good value tasters. If you purchase one then please add ‘BLOG’ to the ‘comments to seller’ section when you checkout on Etsy and I’ll throw in a free length of pearl purl for you to say ‘thank you’ for reading my blog.