Just bead it

Last night Maggie (my officemate and fellow PhD student), taught a few of us how to bead. She, in turn, had learned it from a few elders she met while doing field work in a small village in SE Alaska. We each made a pattern, which pretty much all turned out to be too ambitious, then spent about 3 hours working. Around sunset we took a break to sit in the hot tub and enjoy the scenery - and to relax our shoulders! Turns out you can have pretty crappy posture while beading if you're not careful!

Here we are just starting out.

We drew patterns on something called 'tear away', which we then tacked on to felt. The tear away helped us keep to a pattern, though Maggie (and presumably the people she learned from) didn't use it. Once we're done, we tear away the white stuff and just leave the beads on the green felt backing.

I picked a squid for my pattern, with swirls for decoration. But the swirls I drew were too small for the beads we had, so I had to simplify it some.  I don't know that I'll do a lot of beading, but it's fun to know, and now I feel like I'd have the confidence to try it for decoration on something if I wanted. And of course beading is like quilting - it's social and fun and brings people together.