How Many Beaders Here?

[dovelady]

Hello Everyone,

As some of you know, I'm a beadworker. I work mainly in seed beads and I was wondering who else works with seed beads? i.e. Loomwork, peyote beadwork, or any other off-loom work.

I mostly do contemporary beadwork these days, but I was just curious who else beads here. :)

[Mousini78]

You have my admiration, dear....I have tried the seed beads and found I don't have the patience. So I stick with the necklaces and larger beads..and mainly just make pieces for Ken and I...or for gifts. I am still having problems wrapping feathers to put on barrettes...just not being patient enough, I suspect. Can't hurry some things...

[dovelady]

Boy that is for sure. You sure can't hurry beadwork of any kind. LOL

[Linda]

The other possibility is that there's some technique that makes it workable that you don't know yet. Not that I know. I have trouble with featherwork myself, but likely, somebody who knows the ins and outs finds it pretty easy.

[dovelady]

I am still having problems wrapping feathers to put on barrettes...just not being patient enough, I suspect. Can't hurry some things...

What kind of problems are you having? I don't do a lot of wrapping, I do a lot of weaving, but I may be able to help.

Is it just that the work slips or you can't get the design you want or? Let us know and we'll put our heads together and see if we can help.

[spilleddi]

Howdy Dovelady,
I also bead, but I don't know what kind of beads I use. They just itty bitty things that have a tendency to get eaten up by the carpet. I bead on material or brain tan moose hide. I can't bead (or sew) on commericial leather to save my life. If you know any tricks to that, let me know.

[dovelady]

Howdy Dovelady,
I bead on material or brain tan moose hide. I can't bead (or sew) on commericial leather to save my life. If you know any tricks to that, let me know.

I know what you mean. Commercial leather just doesn't cut it. The tanning process makes the leather almost un-beadable.

It depends on what kind of beading you are doing, but if you are doing something like lane stitch, you can always use an awl to pierce the leather. But that is really a pain after a while. Another thing that people do with commercial leather is to just take a tuck in the top layer. But I have found that if you don't take a deep enough tuck the thread pulls through the leather and then it is a real mess because the leather displaces when it tears and so you have to either smooth it back down and glue it into place, or you have to cut the torn top section off. And that makes the leather uneven. And that can cause your beadwork to look uneven too. Also, it is hard on your hands and you may break a lot of needles.

Some people do the applique beadwork on softer cloth or brain tanned as you mentioned and then sew that to the heaver leather. Something that works for lane stitch is to run the leather through the sewing machine (without the thread). The sewing machine needle makes evenly spaced pre-punched holes for you. You may have to tweak the stitch size to get it just right to match the size of your beads. But be sure to use a heavy duty needle or it will break. And that could be dangerous if the broken piece flies up and hits you in the face or the eye. Lane stitch is also known as 'lazy stitch'..but believe me..there is nothing lazy about it.

A lot of people also use this sewing machine technique to punch the holes for moccasins too, so they can get even spacing when they sew the soles to the upper part.

But in the end... having said all that.. brain tanned and or cloth is still the best to use if you are doing beautiful floral designs or anything with curves etc. Also, some people are now using ultra suade to bead on. But I find that it is just as expensive as real leather and sometimes even more expensive. But it does come in a wide range of colors. And some websites sell small squares of it.

It all boils down to what your personal preference is. Personally, I do like the brain tanned since it is more 'authentic'. It can get expensive too, but it is worth it. :) But when I don't have any, (like right now) I do use cloth or ultra suade.

[Linda]

I just found a technique for working leather, this time in connection with making a water drum. I use an orbital sander to remove the top, shiny layer of leather. I wonder if something like this might help beading?

[dovelady]

Hey Linda, it might just work if the result is softer leather. Maybe I'll dig around and see if I have any commercial leather here and try it.

Also, garment leather is much easier to use than some of the other 'regular' leather that you find. We used to have a great leather store in Portland, but I havent been there for years. I don't even know if they are still around.

Thanks for the info. I'll let you know if I get to try it.

[spilleddi]

Thanks, I hadn’t heard of the sewing machine technique. And I’m not familiar with ultra suede either, so I’ll look into it. I know some folks that have fully beaded commercial skin dresses, and I wondered how they did that. No wonder folks these days are just beading tops on cloth and only using skins for the skirt.

I recently found some German tan leather. Its commercial, but easy to bead on. More expensive than regular commercial, but cheaper than braintan. Comes in white and a light tan. Anyone used that?

Dovelady, is that leather store in Portland the Tandy leather near Saturday market? I heard they closed but I may be wrong. I get most of my stuff these days from powwows and trading posts.

[dovelady]

No it isn't. They closed the Tandy Store years ago.

The leather store I was thinking of is Oregon Leather Company. I just looked it up and it is still listed:

Oregon Leather Co
503-228-4105 Fax: 503-228-0210 Toll-Free: 800-634-8033 110 NW 2nd Ave, Portland, OR 97209

They used to have some really nice leather. And also carried garment leather which is pretty thin.

Ultrasuade, on the other hand, can be found in fabric stores. It is terribly expersive, anywhere from $60.00 per yard and up! But it ususally is 60 inches wide. But still very expensive for my taste. Course, if you are lucky you might find it on sale. The good thing about it, unlike leather, it can be washed.

I have not used the German leather as far as I know.

[Siksikajonesy1]

Hello Everyone,

As some of you know, I'm a beadworker. I work mainly in seed beads and I was wondering who else works with seed beads? i.e. Loomwork, peyote beadwork, or any other off-loom work.

I mostly do contemporary beadwork these days, but I was just curious who else beads here. :)
Hi! Please take a look at our site http://www.lclbeadworkers.com to check out some of the art work my mom, sister and I do. We just started up again in Oct of 05 but that's all I used to do as a kid is BEAD BEAD BEAD...

[dovelady]

I tried to go to look at your site, but I only have dial up and it took forever for the pages to load. They are huge. And I couldn't run the videos. Oh well :( One of these days I really do have to upgrade to a faster connection.

But it's good to know that you do beads too. :)

[DAJ42]

I'm supposed to learn how to bead this winter. My wife beads and makes baskets. Hopefully she can teach me to bead small items without losing too much patience with me. ;) We've got a large memorial to prepare for sometime next fall. The more handmade items we can put together, the better.

[dovelady]

That's wonderful. I know you'll enjoy learning.