Encyclopedia of Beading Techniques

Sara Withers has worked with beads for many years, as a collector and maker. Her jewelry is sold in galleries, shops, and at exhibitions throughout the United Kingdom. She also enjoys teaching bead- and jewelry-making, and lecturing on all aspects of bead history. She is the author of five books on beadwork.Like so many beaders Stephanie Burnham's creative life started in another textile discipline. She took an Adult Education course entitled Art & Design in Embroidery and stayed on to take her City and Guilds in Embroidery. Stephanie was invited to teach at The Country Cross Stitcher and they are now in the 9th year of workshops for The Woburn School of Needlework. Here she teaches classes in both embroidery and beadwork from beginners to innovative and challenging techniques. Stephanie started beading quite unexpectedly whilst attending an Embroiderers Guild meeting in Letchworth and was hooked after about half an hour. Stephanie was thrilled to be chosen to teach as the Great British Bead Show held in Coventry.

Sep 05...This useful primer takes you through the beading process from buying essential tools, types of bead and what they are called, all about findings and threads and then it is on with the techniques. These begin with bead embroidery, and cover knotting, wirework, crochet and knitting, loomwork, offloom stitches and stringing to name some. Absolutely everything to do with beads isn't covered, but then I have never seen any book that does all this; it is simply too huge a topic. There are instructions to work through some quite nice pieces, although nothing to set the beading world alight. This is basically a primer from which to learn the methods, and projects tend to be to illustrate these techniques and learn from doing which is the best way. At the reverse is a list of UK shops and websites for obtaining beads and beading advice which is so useful, and the inevitable gallery of work. Rather misleadingly some of these gallery pieces are shown on the cover. I do wish books only showed pieces the book had instructions for on covers. My verdict? This is an attractive and user-friendly book that most beaders (except for real experts) will welcome, as you truly can learn from it and that is really the most any how-to book can aspire to.