Learning the Healing Art of Bead Embroidery

So it's been a while since I posted here. The last year has been a wild ride of exciting new opportunities and a changing tide and while I was figuring a few things out, I took a little step back from social media. The one constant this year has been my bead embroidery and I know, the last time I posted, I promised I'd make a post with a tutorial on some basic bead embroidery techniques to get you started so finally, here we are!

I know it was a while back now, so check back to The Magic of Bead Embroidery for a guide to beads, needles, thread, fabric and embroidery hoops. I have also added some free templates.

Let's go!

Setting Up Your Canvas

When starting work on a magical piece of bead embroidery, you’ll need to firstly secure your thread to your canvas.

To do so, you simply need to make 3 or 4 small stitches over the top of each other, making sure the stitches are underneath the area you intend to start your beadwork, so that they’re not visible.

1. Starting on the underside of your fabric, push the needle up through the cloth and pull the thread through, leaving around 2-3 inches of thread on the underside.
   
   
2. Now the needle is on the topside of your fabric, push it back down through the cloth about 5mm along from where you started, making a very small stitch.
   
   
3. Then bring the needle back up through the first hole and repeat steps 2 and 3, 3 more times. I find this secures the bead embroidery thread perfectly.

 

 

Beautiful Backstitch

You only need learn one type of stitch for bead embroidery, and that’s a basic backstitch (or beautiful backstitch as I like to call it). I’ll show you some other decorative stitches to experiment with later on, but for now, backstitch is the most important. Below I’ll show you how to do backstitch 6.

Backstitch 6

This is the main stitch I use to fill space quickly. It’s great for larger embroideries where straight rows of beads are needed, and it’s definitely the fastest stitch.

1. Load your needle with 6 beads and slide them down the thread as far as they will go. Make sure the beads are lying in a neat and straight row against the fabric, beads stacked against each other (refer to the image below). Then push your needle down into the felt just after the row of beads ends and pull the thread through to secure your first 6 beads.
   
   
2. Now bring the needle back up from the underside of your embroidery between the 3rd and 4th beads.
   
   
3. Then feed the needle and thread back through beads 4, 5 and 6.
   
   
4. Pull your thread through firmly, making sure the beads are nice and secure.
   
   
5. Add another 6 beads to your needle then repeat steps 1 and 2. Practice stitching a few rows of beads next to each other. The idea is to get each new row to sit neatly against the previous row without any gaps as we’ll be using this stitch not only to outline our designs but also to colour fill.

You can also practice backstitch 4 using the same technique: Instead of threading 6 beads and coming back up after the 3rd, simply thread on 4 beads, come back up after the 2nd and back through beads 3 and 4.

 

Finding Your Natural Rhythm

Before you jump into a project it’s important to get a little more comfortable with basic backstitch. Ideally, you want to get to a place where you’re not overthinking the technicalities of the stitch and instead just focusing on the flow of the design. In all honestly, there are no real rules when it comes to illustrative bead embroidery. I like to think of it as an organic process like painting, but instead of colouring your canvas in paint, you’re stitching a mosaic of tiny glass beads.

To get you started, I’ve included some simple practice shapes below for you to copy, or you can draw your own. Use biro or a water-soluble fabric pen to draw the shapes onto your fabric, and then practice your bead embroidery backstitch by firstly following the outline of the shape, and then filling it in using the same technique. There are a couple of ways you can fill in your shape:

1. You can either follow the flow of the shape’s outline until the shape is completely filled in, working your way from the outside in towards the middle of the design, using backstitch 4 or whatever feels right depending on how tight the curves are.
2. Or stitch straight, horizontal or vertical stacking rows of beads. Backstitch 6 is great for this.

 

Remember:

To breathe! I often find myself concentrating on my work so hard that I forget to breathe. Maybe it’s just me, but I tend to hold my breath when I’m hyper focused on an activity, or I just breathe too shallow. It happens when I’m doing embroidery, driving in traffic, even writing this blog post and I am constantly reminding myself to breathe! Deep nourishing lungfuls. Once you get into the rhythm of bead embroidery though, you can use the flow of the needle and thread to guide a lovely deep breathing practice.

We're coming up to the New Year and I always think it's a great time to learn something new or pick up a new hobby, so grab some supplies and have fun! Keep an eye out for my follow along bead embroidery journal series coming very soon!

Big love, Jennifer x

P.S. Sometimes I'll be sending out free digital gifts relevant to my blog posts, like creative templates or guides and sometimes free downloadable art for you to print at home. So remember to join my mailing list so you don't miss out!