Feature Designer

Writing this blog has enabled me to enjoy many email conversations with beaders from all over the world. None have been more delightful than those with Lady Roots, a beadweaving artisan from Jamaica. Beading is largely her pleasure as she earns her daily bread or as Jamaicans would put it, " How mi eat fi mi food", in the technology field, installing software.

She is completely self-taught, learning various stitches from books, magazines and online tutorials. Her favourite stitches are the even count peyote and the Ndebele although she insists she is still trying to master multi-row right angle weaves. I don't agree as you can see from her inspirational two-needle right angle woven necklace using small seed beads and round hematite. The pendant is loosely based on Ethiopian Coptic crosses.

Some of her creations are gifts, others are sold and like a lot of artisans, she does custom work. She got her selling start when some woman bought her beaded bracelet right off her wrist! You can see some of her work on her blog Voice from Jamaica. It's remarkable that Lady Roots manages to author a blog when she is not guaranteed electricity or phone service every day from her hilltop home. Indeed she has recently been without phone and internet for a month and is probably still wrangling with the Cable & Wireless (or as she calls them, Chaos and Witless) company about her intermittent service.

Bless up, Lady Roots! Hope you solve your internet woes soon. And thanks for your permission to post your pictures.

Beadweaving Stitches Tutorials
Once you have mastered the peyote stitch, there are limitless ways to use it.

Making long tubes comes in handy for necklaces especially with beaded amulet work.

Not that interested in lamp work? Then consider this great tutorial for making beads from small seed beads:

Ndebele (or Herringbone) Stitch is named after the South African tribe famous of their beautiful beadwork.

Right Angle Weave (RAW) requires crossweaving of two threads through the beads. A staple in Japanese beadwork.