When I was at the bead shop with Jane a couple of weeks ago I purchased seed beads to try my hand at Ndebele beadwork - a traditional style of beadwork from the women of the Ndebele tribe of South Africa and Zimbabwe. I saw many striking examples on my visits to South Africa and now I have a notion to make a 2-3 inch tall beaded cuff for a glass vase for myself.
Yesterday I made up a small sample using one online tutorial but my first couple of rows are really wonky and my turns are a mess, so I'll have to try again with different tutorials. Some tutorials I've looked at suggest starting with a ladder stitch; that looks like it'd reinforce that first row nicely. I'm definitely going to try that tonight.
In my sample the bead colours are organized by row - the tutorial suggested that to begin so that the different rows can be easily distinguished - but my intention is to have a very random multicolour pattern. Maybe after a few more practice runs!
1 comment:
Yahoo, a fellow beader! I haven't tried that stitch yet, but I've wanted to. I find that it takes a few tries to get a decent result when you're learning a new beading technique!
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