One of the things I love most about my beading (aside from the actual beads!) is the community that surrounds this craft. I’ve met so many really lovely people through beads. In some cases, I’ve deliberately made the effort to join a beading group (both in the real world and online), but a lot of the friends I’ve met have just been through forums, people who have been interested in my work or contacted me on Facebook.
I’m pretty sure that I mentioned before, that I joined an Etsy group at the end of last year – Etsy Beadweavers. Well, it’s been a great way to meet other people and get a bit more involved on Etsy, but most of all, I love that they run challenges and events that really make the members mix and get to know one another’s jewellery as well as the talented people behind it. I’ve just signed up to an event called ‘Spring Swap’. Everyone who is part of this event is assigned a partner. We all had to answer a short questionnaire to say what colours we like and hate, what style of jewellery we like to wear and also to give our jewellery sizing. I have just received my partner’s questionnaire and, using the information on that, I now get to make her a piece of jewellery and send it to her before the end of April. She will have received my questionnaire and will be doing the same for me. We have to work to a budget of around $10 for materials. We both get the fun of creating something new and also receiving a gift from someone else, as well as giving a gift of our own. I think it’s a lovely way to generate a sense of community and for me, it also says a lot about the beading world, which I find to be a very generous place – if only more of life worked this way!
I also heard recently that March is national craft month. I’m not too sure whether this is worldwide, or just in the US, but I thought I would adopt the idea anyway and maybe use it to reach out to the community of beaders I know through this website. So who would like a little challenge of their own? The idea is that I will set a series of tasks through the first week in March – you can undertake all of them or just some of them. Using these tasks, you then get to spend the rest of March making some jewellery or other beadwork. When you’ve finished your pieces, email me a photo and some details about which of the tasks they have used and I will add this work to a special page on the gallery. So, who’s up for the challenge?
As it’s almost March, I thought I would set the first two tasks now to get you started thinking…
1. Choose a colour that you very rarely use and build a colour scheme around it
2. Pick a beading technique that you haven’t used for a while, or a technique that is completely new to you and try to incorporate this into the beadwork you are making
Next task will be posted on Saturday 1st March!
