Following a tutorial

Usually, I am pretty useless at following written instructions, even with pics. I am much better having somebody sitting right opposite me and showing me how to do it. BUT, Sandy from QUILL COTTAGE has the knack of making really logical, beautifully presented and easy to follow tutorials that even somebody like me can follow. Remember the wrist cuff tutorial she made ages ago, which I managed to follow and produce these -

Well, a few months ago, she made another tutorial, this time for WIRE WRAPPED FABRIC BEADS and they looked so gorgeous, I really wanted to make some myself. It has taken me a while ( a looooong while, lol ) to get round to it, but I finally started on them last night and made the basic beads. I used some scraps of a lovely 100 year old hand loomed French linen. They dried out nicely overnight, so this morning I got together a few tiny scraps of lace and scrim and a few odd beads I had in my odd-beads tub and dug out some jewellery wire. 

I had so much fun! There were a few mutterings as well. Trying to hold everything together whilst starting the wire wrapping takes some practice, lol, and getting fiddly little seed beads on there wasn't easy either. But I was loving it! Using up the tiniest bits of fabric and lace this way is such a very satisfying thing to do. And here are the results, nothing spectacular, but I am happy with them for a first try -

A huge thank you goes to Sandy for her fabulous inspiring tutorial.

I must say that I also got a huge amount of inspiration from Suzy, as she also made some amazing fabric beads and showed them on her beautiful blog. You have probably seen them already, but just in case you haven't been there yet, HERE is the link. The beads are at the bottom of the post.

And while we are talking about Suzy, this wonderful artist has just started filling the shelves in her Etsy shop again ( long overdue ), and oh my, the offerings there are just so delicious! You can find her shop HERE.

Thats all for now, I have to get some orders ready for posting tomorrow ( yep, on a Sunday, the only good thing to have come out of the privatisation of the post offices, the local post office is open 4 hours on a Sunday ).

Wishing you all a terrific weekend! Toodlepip xxx