Stitchboard Admin message #2
Re: BEADING ON FABRIC
February 5, 2011 at 2:41:57 AM
 
What a great question! 

I've done bead embroidery before, but that was a very long time ago.  I can't call this expertise at all...I remember transferring an outlined image onto felt, beading the outline to start (one or two beads at a time), and finally filling in the outlines with sections of three or four beads at a time, like coloring with pencils or crayons - except with beads!

For more in-depth information...

Beads East has a PDF tutorial for what they call "Bead Point":
http://www.beadseast.com/beadembroidery.pdf

Also, about.com has a nice tutorial, as well:
http://beadwork.about.com/od/beadingstitchtutorials/ss/bead_embroidery_stitch_tutor.htm

That's just a start...if these tutorials don't give you enough information, please do let me know and I'll be happy to find some others. 

One thing that's very helpful; make sure your fabric is somehow supported.  The about.com tutorial talks about using Lacy's Stiff Stuff.  As mentioned, I was working with felt - regular felt, and it was so flimsy, I was getting very, very frustrated.  You really do want to avoid that kind of thing happening, because it should be enjoyable to embroider with beads, rather than frustrating!

Hope this helps! 

Melanie  (known to the cat as "Rowr" or "Rowr Rowr") =^.^=

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