Bead Here Now

I grew up in a Southern California town that is so close to Disneyland that we could watch their nightly summer fireworks from our driveway. The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana was a frequent weekend destination for my parents, my sisters and me. My most vivid memory is of the various beaded items in the Native American displays. I used to have dreams about being able to go inside the display cases to examine the beaded adornments more closely.

When I was about 9 years old, I saved up for a kit that included a wood & metal loom, needles, thread, seed beads and instructions for beaded patterns. The instructions were beyond confusing. The only thread included with the kit was white, and it very quickly got soiled & frayed from my constant pulling out & re-stitching rows. The headband that I (finally) completed was a truly horrible thing, even for a first attempt and I set the loom aside, convinced that I had no skill for this particular type of craft.

My Mom is an accomplished seamstress with great creative instincts, and she taught me to sew and embroider after I abandoned my bead-weaving loom. I continued to sew for myself and, later, for my kids. Sewing, especially hand-sewing, was a wonderful creative outlet for many years.

Then, five years ago, my husband The Gruffalo became gravely ill. I spent more time in the hospital than at home. Reading was impossible, and even the most tiny sewing project was too bulky to tote back and forth to the hospital. A few weeks before my husband got sick I had taken a bead weaving class at my local bead shop. Bead weaving projects are eminently portable: a few tubes of seed beads, needle & thread take up very little space. The pattern I had learned was just distracting enough to take my mind off the beeping and blaring of hospital equipment. I could set aside the project at a moment’s notice to follow my husband into radiology for yet another test. In those tense weeks spent watching over my husband I re-discovered my childhood love of beaded things.

My husband got better, slowly, and came home to finish recovering. I took more classes, learned more stitches and acquired (ahem) a few more beads. Scratch even a casual beader and you will find a magpie with an insatiable hunger for little shiny trinkets. In fact, one of my favorite teachers (more about her in later posts) called herself The Magpie online. The Gruffalo, now fully recovered, arches an eyebrow when I tell him that I have to go to the bead shop and says “Yes. I was getting worried that you might run out.”

My repertoire of skills now includes wire wrapping and metal clay techniques, but I keep coming back to bead weaving. It allows me to produce pieces that I can gift or sell while still delighting the 9-year-old girl inside of me who wanted nothing more than to get closer to the intricate, intoxicating beadwork on display at The Bowers Museum.

It has only been very recently that I have taken the stitches and techniques I have learned and started to design my own pieces. Sometimes I will start with a published pattern and make modifications based on my own taste, other times I will start with a pile of beads and no idea what the finished piece will be.

The purpose of this blog is to write about beading and to post photos of my projects, including work in progress. I’m happy to address any comments about my work as long as the criticism provided is constructive. Tips, techniques, resources, pitfalls and personal stories will all be fair game for blog posts and comments. I hope you enjoy and can join the conversation.