How I got started beading.

I created this blog to keep a record of my beading activities. I've made things with beads throughout my life and dabbled in various hobbies and crafts everything from painstakingly time consuming cross stitch to making felt, machine sewing and a whole load of other things (far too numerous to list here). But this is how I "got into" beading.

I was basically looking for something new to do. I have a large amount of beads in my craft stash which were acquired mainly from car boot sales. The best way to describe the beads in my stash is bead soup (a mix of thousands of different types shapes sizes) so I was searching online for something to do with them. Then I found pictures of loom work using seed beads. I knew straight away this was something I wanted to try.

My first attempt was pretty shocking, I didnt even own a bead loom at that time. I made a very basic loom from a cardboard box by sticking tooth picks in rows on each side. I used some seedbeads I had and some standard cotton thread I had lying around.

The result was AWFUL. So bad infact I actually threw it in the bin. The weaving was lumpy and ugly, the thread snapped in one place and started to unravel, some beads dropped off and it was a general mess.

But I was not put off the idea of looming beads. I just knew I needed to get some better equipment and better beads. But I needed money to do this.

The first thing I did was sell my rubbish beads on ebay. I didnt want to mess around with lots of little sales so I bagged up a load and listed them as a bulk lot. By selling the rubbish unusable beads I was able to buy a proper bead loom.

This is my bead loom



I bought it online from Fred Aldous (a craft shop in Manchester).

I also invested in some size 11 Miyuki Delica seed beads. From what I had read online these beads were the mutts nuts for loom weaving. The reason for this is that they are all identical in size and shape.

I also got some strong thread, the type you can't snap with your bare hands.

Everything was in place now and this was how I got started beading.