Beadwork

Vlasta Peyerlová

If you're interested in making jewelry, bracelets and stuff or applied arts, you might enjoy beadwork. I got into beadwork about three years ago and haven't stopped ever since. It's nice art that requires a lot of thinking when you're doing it. Unfortunately there's not many people who know how to do it.

There's lot of kinds of beads. If you're a beginner you should start working with beads of the same or at least similar size. The basic package of beads costs around forty crowns. The smaller the beads are, the more expensive they get. Wooden ones are cheaper but they're easier to break and they're often not cleaned inside so it's up to you to do it before you start your work.

Always check out first if you have a needle that can go through. Apparently special beading needles exist just for this purpose, though I never had one in hand. They're very long and thin, so they don't get stuck in the bead. I've always used normal needles for sewing, the tiniest I found. And it works just fine.

Next thing is thread. You can use special beading thread or some sort of strings or multiple normal threads for sewing. I tried to use strings once and their advantage is that they can bear a lot. But they're not that submissive, so I like to use normal threads more. They can easily break, so you need at least three (but this actually has its advantage when you need to add more thread to your work). Unfortunately they can tangle much better than a single thread and though it doesn't happen to me that much, it can be really annoying.

If you really want to get into beadwork, you can buy a bead loom. I've never had one so I do only off-loom beadweawing. You can also try bead embroidery or bead braiding.