Counted Beadwork.

Q: I'm new to this ng. I'm am hoping someone can help me. I am interested in counted beadwork and looking for charts, books, etc. that may help. I am looking for designs of small purses, scissors and needlecases that you can wear around your neck. I am also interested in antique beaded purses.

A: If you mean using beads in counted cross-stitch, you should probably try a cross-stitch group. :) Antique beaded purses were done by knitting, crochet and also by looming. You can bead instead of using floss when doing cross stitch. Such instructions are in cross stitch groups. Any cross stitch pattern can be loomed, but the width to length ratio will change. If you are interested in learning bead weaving with or without a loom then you might start at: http://beadwork.about.com Look at Carol Wilcox Wells' book Creative Bead Weaving Go to a bead store and look over their class schedules for a likely learning project. Check out Suzanne Coopers on line classes. From this si te you need to go to her classroom. http://www.suzannecooper.com/ Check out looming instructions: http://rogue.northwest.com/~ahawley/ Exactly what techniques would you like to use? You can stitch beads onto evenweave fabric or needlepoint canvas; incorporate beads into knitting/crocheting/tatting (which is how some antique beaded purses were constructed); use a bead loom (which is how other antique beaded purses were constructed); or beadweave (stringing beads without a loom to form a fabric). There are a lot of patterns available for small bags (amulet bags) in beadweaving. I don't personally know of patterns for beaded needlework accessories, though I think the thing to do would be to find a charted pattern (probably cross stitch), and then substitute beads for the stitches. Your best bet may be to check out the crafts books at your local library, crafts store, or bookstore and see what sort of techniques most interest you. By the way, depending on your level of fussiness, any graphed pattern works for just about any counted technique. There may be some distortion--beads and duplicate stitch (on knit sweaters) are longer than they are high, and certain beadweaving stitches will skew the adjacent lines relative to each other, but...

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