My training in beadwork began at age 12, when I found and bought my first 'Indian Bead Loom'. Frustrated by the lack of instruction available at the time, I set the loom aside after creating a number of bracelets and a small split loomed necklace. I never lost my fascination for beads, though, and continued to search more instruction!Beadwork became a full time passion for me when I discovered beading magazines in the mid 90's. Inspired by these new sources of information, I began learning and creating all kinds of off-loom projects. It didn't take me long before I was going beyond what instruction was available at the time and began experimenting with beads and stitches on my own. My passion led to the opening of my own retail bead store, Crafty Dragon Beads, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. While owning and operating a bead store kept me from beading as much as I would have liked, it did have other positive impacts on my work. One of those positive impacts was the discovery of new beading techniques from Russia as books from that country began to be imported by my suppliers.Although I was far from an expert in translating Russian, I had a few years of high school and college Russian language classes to get me started. I realized that here was a unique opportunity for me to study techniques that had developed independently of the ones I was working with, and make those techniques available to English speaking beaders. My work with Russian beading caught the attention of Alice Korach, then the editor of Bead & Button magazine, and I did two articles for Bead & Button at her request. (I also did an article for Beadwork magazine on a reproduction of a Victorian miser bag--antique beading was my other area of interest at the time).Another development in my beadwork education took me down the path that I am currently exploring...that of bead embroidery. I have long had a fascination with fabric, and I jumped at the opportunity to take a bead embroidery class from Robin Atkins. Robin took us through a most relaxing weekend journey of instruction and self-exploration that showed me a new way of using beads to express myself. It took me 6 months to finish the piece I started in class, but I did finish it! One of the things I noticed in class was that most beaders are not comfortable simply picking up beads and sewing them on fabric. They seek guidance, direction, an assurance that what they are doing will eventually be a stunning piece of art (or at least that it won't suck). This gave me the idea of creating patterns that would provide both guidance and how-to instructions for pieces that looked complex, but were actually easy to create. My first pattern, Edward Scissorfish, was born (or is that hatched?).Designing, of course, led to teaching, and teaching led to travelling all over the country, which conflicted with owning a retail bead store, so the bead store was closed. My life now revolves around bringing Russian beadwork and original bead embroidery art to my fellow beaders. For me, it is a very nice place to bead.About the Artist: LouAnn Hall
Russian Butterfly Necklace
