Brick Stitch Bloom!

Hello everyone!

Surprise! I expect you thought I'd given up on blogging, didn't you? Well what with Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn and now Instagram it can be hard to find time to do any actual beading, but I do have a genuine top secret reason for my absence which I will post about in the coming months. For now though I wanted to drop by and let you know that the fabulous Jean Power has a new book out called "Woman's Weekly Guide to Beading". I was very fortunate to be asked to be a guest designer for this book and my project "Brick Stitch Bloom" can be found on page 150.

Jean has nearly a shelf-full of beading books to her name now and this is another great comprehensive book that has something for everyone from beginners up to the more experienced beader. It is neatly broken down into chapters covering the basics of beading, stringing, wirework and woven beadwork. My little flower brooch is in the woven beadwork section of course and it's much easier to make than it probably looks. I have to say that the illustrations in this book are some of the best I have ever seen and the art department has done a marvellous job with my original diagrams that now look really lovely and easy to follow. The UK edition of this book is called "Woman's Weekly Guide to Beading" and the US version is called "Beading Learn It. Love It" so although you might see two different covers (as shown below) they are actually both the same book.

When I was invited to submit a project for the book I was given a specific colour palette to use and the following project brief: design a small floral project that incorporates peyote or brick stitch with 17-19 step-by-step instructions. As you can imagine, this ticked a lot of boxes for me because it is just the type of beadwork I love to do and so I chose to make a 9 petalled brick stitch flower brooch and it took exactly 19 steps to explain how to make it! I used beautiful Preciosa Ornela seed beads in shade numbers 331 19001 46025 (purple) and 331 19001 63021 (green) and added a white glass pearl to the centre. This innocent looking little flower does actually hold a design secret, so if you want to know what that is - go and treat yourself to a copy of Jean's wonderful new book!

See you next time!

Kerrie ♥