Welcome to a new feature on Beading Daily: the Question of the Week!
I've assembled a panel of some very talented and well-known bead artists, and
every week they'll be answering a question about beads, beadwork or anything
related to jewelry making!
This week's inaugural Question of the Week was:
What Do You Love About Seed Beads?
Judging from the answers, it seems that there's a lot to love! I saw lots of
exclamation points in the answers - it seems that our panel gets pretty excited
about those tiny little pieces of glass that we all know and love. Read on to
read answers from the first eight panelists for this week! (You can find out more about each panelist by clicking on their picture.)
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Michelle Mach: I love using seed beads to stretch
my stringing budget. Seed beads make terrific spacers between more expensive
beads such as crystals and pearls. A $2-3 tube of seed beads can last months or
years when you're only using 20-40 seed beads per project!
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Carol Dean Sharpe: What I love about seed beads is the
same thing I have loved about yarns, embroidery floss, threads, and fabric
my entire life: COLOR! Color in forms that I can manage and manipulate.
Take those small bits of color and combine them in the grids created by
peyote and suddenly even I - who can't draw a straight line much
less a circle to save my life - can create a wonderful graphic. A
miracle happens and the whole becomes so much greater than the sum of its
beautiful, colorful, tiny parts.
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Betcey Ventrella: Oooh, seed beads! I love the nearly
infinite color range - every shade imaginable in every finish - lustrous,
matte, iridescent, pearly, opaque. This array of colors and finishes
give us the ability to actually "paint" with
beads, creating gradations of color and textures. I think my
favorites are Charlottes and cuts - yum. That one wee cut - slicing off the
tiniest sliver of glass - creates the most delicious glimmer. That single flat
surface catches the light to sparkle in a subtle *wink* with the slightest
movement. Sublime.
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Margie Deeb: Working with seed beads is like
making a mosaic: I use many tiny pieces of light and color to create beauty.
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Jean Campbell: I love that you can take these tiny
elements and use them to build something structural, durable, and fluid. They
are like mini building blocks that can not only make "buildings"
(jewelry), but also "paintings" (patterns).
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Kerrie Slade: Ummmm everything? I mean,
what's not to like about seed beads? But if I had to pick one thing, it
would be their versatility. I can use them to whip up a simple pair of
netted earrings to match an outfit if I'm going out that evening (they come in
just about any colour you can imagine and then some) or I can spend hours
working row upon row of something like increasing brick stitch until I have a
substantial textural piece that most non-beaders don't even recognize as being
handmade. They may look humble but seed beads have huge potential!
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Nancy Dale: What I like the best about seed
beads is their versatility. They are the super heroes of the bead world. They
can pair with ANY other beads in your stash and can be used in a staggering amount
of ways. From stringing to structured sculpture, to a beaded fabric, they run
the gamut, and come in every color you could ever imagine. You can paint
great swaths of color with them, or add the tiniest details with them, and they
form the basis for all of my work. All hail the seed bead!
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Shelley Nybakke: The fact that I can take one tiny
seed bead at a time, a lot of patience and a relentless nature and turn it into
something unique. And then I can take a different color of seed bead or a different
size and shape and make the same project but end up with an entirely different
piece of "unique". Working with seed beads never gets boring, and
neither does buying seed beads!
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You can keep the conversation going by adding a comment: What do YOU love about seed beads?
Join us each week for a new question!
Bead Happy,
Jennifer
Filed under: Pearls, Crystals, Beaded Beads, Bead Making, Stringing, Brick Stitch, How To Bead, Seed Bead Patterns, Bead-weaving, Beaded Jewelry Design, Beads, Jewelry Making, Beading Daily