The Stitchkateer!: DIY: You too can be AWESOME and do BEAD WORK!

So what makes a wedding yours? THE DETAILS!

And What makes any old gown a WEDDING Gown? DETAILS!

And what is a pretty cool detail for a dress or accessory? BEAD WORK!!!!!

So here is your sweet and simple Tutorial on doing BEAD WORK!!

MATERIALS:

Fabric or accessory you wish to bead (you can make anything really pop by adding beads or sequins or BOTH!) fabric can be anything from cotton to poly-brocade to Dupioni Silk! You may wish to put a backing to light weight fabric to make sure the weight of the beads doesn't tear the fabric. If you are using something like Organza or silk putting a backing on your fabric keeps it from tearing or bunching up once it's done. Really light weight fabrics cannot hold the number of beads that heaver fabrics can. You Don't have to use expensive fabric to make this look good! Really I got my brocade on sale @ Joann's for $5 a yard!

Also realize you are adding weight to your garment. You can use this to your advantage but be careful with lighter weight fabrics (I recommend plastic pearls/sequins as they are very light weight) so that you don't make them hang down heavy if you are looking for a light and airy flow to your fabric. However, something like what I'm making can take heavier beads and they work to my advantage. I'm also a Belly Dancer. When I go to spin in this coat on the dance floor the bead work will pull the hem out and make it flair because the weight of the beads will be effected by Centrifugal Force of my spin. Know what you want your garment to do and you can use bead work to make it happen. Insider tip: putting a row of glass seed beads around your hem will make it flair when you spin if the fabric is flow-y. Some belly dance veils have a row of glass seed beads on the outer edge to make them do this, it makes it easy to do veil work.

Beads: You can go to your local hobby store and get a shit ton of beads for very little money or you can go to a Gem and Mineral show and get real rocks but they cost real dollars too! I have about $300 worth of real rock, and I'm intermingling them with an infinite supply of gold tone seed beads at about $4 per gazillion. Your choice. The less expensive ones are more likely to be able to be sewn with a regular needle. It's why I'm not sure I'm going to use the peacock pearls they have tiny holes and won't fit over a regular needle. *sigh*

Beading thread- Choose your poison. Honestly I'm using Walmart brand waxed beading thread. I got it in a bag of stuff I inherited from my mother. You can also use surger thread, which is a little thicker than sewing thread. If you use non waxed thread you'll likely want a little wax to slide your thread on so that it goes through the beads and doesn't snag. Bees wax is cheap at Joann's, Michael's, or any craft store.

Needle- regular sewing needle can work, or you can go with a no bullshit beading needles. I almost can't thread a beading needle and many beads come with a hole big enough to take a small sewing needle. test the hole to see what you've got. I'm saving some peacock colored pearls for the end of my project because they take a no shit beading needle and I just don't want to mess with that unless I have to.

regular sewing needle top, beading needle bottom.

Embroidery Hoop! Keeps your fabric flat while you bead, you don't want weird tension bunches in your fabric, keep it flat and test the hang of your fabric after you do a few motifs.

Scissors! kind of a duh thing but I almost forgot to say embroidery hoop! LOL

RULES FOR BEAD WORK!

1. Do NOT Bead your butt! avoid bead work on the part of your outfit where you sit, that is a fast track to losing beads off your garment or tearing your dress.

2.Do not bead where it rubs! under the arms, between the legs on the back where your hair hangs! Unless you are going to wear your hair up EVERY time you wear this garment avoid the back where your hair hangs. (I have a coat made from $200/yd fabric I almost never wear because the bead work is everywhere and it sucks to get my hair tangled in the bead work) I realize this is not likely an issue for many of you but if you are making/putting bling on something that you will turn into another garment once the wedding is done or like me are making something you can wear again and again this is important. These are all fast tracks to loosing bead work.

3. Do NOT go more than 1 inch between beads on the back! If your motifs are spaced more than one inch away from each other tie off and cut the thread so it does not catch nor does it make funky creases in your finished garment.

This is how many times I tie off behind the head of a peacock so I'm not breaking this rule.

4. Do not bead in the seams! Seems pretty reasonable but do not bead wher eyou need to sew it will not go well as you try to feed bead work under the presser foot!

How it's done!

1. figure out your pattern! Make a Xerox of one repeat of your motif to bead and figure out the placement of your beads and how many you will need. Count an inch of beads figure out how many motifs you want to do divide the beads by motifs and that lets you know how many beads you have per motif.

a) pattern-

This is my beading pattern, there are many like it but this one is mine! Note after I got started I decided to delete some of the bead work for expediency and so that I did not have to reset the embroidery hoop too many times.

b) bead count-

c) motif/bead count.-

Figure out how many beads per inch to estimate how many beads you have per motif you want to do. I started out wanting to cover the coat (except where it rubs) and decided that rows around the bottom and up the front would suffice.

2 Begin beading-

a) tie off thread.-

b) bead-

Holding the bead on the needle gets it from your jar to the fabric. sew it down.

c) loop back through-

Go through your bead again, or at least the last bead before putting the next one on. For me this helps keep the beads lining up so there aren't threads between them making them look off kilter when doing a line like on the spine of the peacock.

For the line of beads on the spine of the peacock: I come up get 4 gold beads on my needle, go down, come up behind the last gold bead, go through that bead, get a pearl, go down, come up behind the pearl, go through the pearl get four gold beads go down, tie a knot, come up behind the last gold bead go through the bead and get a pearl.

d) tie off every 10-20 beads- How many beads are you willing to lose at a time? This is simply a precaution against losing whole strands of bead work! Particularly if you are using real rock and have put some money into this!

3. Go until done! Carry it with you everywhere you go so that you can work on it any time you have to sit for any length of time. It goes surprisingly fast that way.

Accessories that are helpful- little jars/lids

All my bead jars stacked up together. They screw together so I don't lose any jars.

When I'm working I have some beads in the top of the working beads jar, and one for beads/pearls that have holes too small for a regular needle. I will either drill them bigger with my dremel set up or break out the beading needle. Or save them for another project.

I only keep a small amount of beads open to the world at a time. I'm a Klutz I don't want to knock $300 worth of beads off the table and into the carpet.