Surface bead embroidery is a wonderful way of creating complex designs for jewelry, garments and other fashion accessories.  The best known and most popular method used by jewelry artisans is with needle and thread.


Ann Benson of Beads East has a wonderful video tutorial to show the basics of bead embroidery. The technique of back stitching and couching with beads is easy to do for all sorts of free form designs.



Another way to do create bead embroidery is to bead on needlepoint or cross stitch canvas.  This is my mother's favorite way.  She uses cross stitch patterns as her inspirations for the beautiful things she made for me.  The peacock picture was accomplished with 15/0 beads!


Again, Ann Benson has a superb video needlepoint beading tutorial. She includes information on the right type of canvas for the bead sizes you might use.



Tambour beading or French embroidery beading is used in French couture houses to embellish fabric and garments.  A special tambour hook is used to create chain stitches. It was also used in lacemaking in the past.

What's interesting is the back of the work faces the beader when incorporating beads and sequins.  Watch Robert Haven, a costume designer's demonstration of how it is done.  The Embroidery Addict's blog post shows the coordinated movements as well as a better picture of what the hooks look like.




The fourth technique appears to be just a deft and practiced way of doing bead crochet on fabric with a very fine crochet hook. The working thread is below the fabric.  Check out this video by Julian Correa I stumbled upon :




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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Jewelry Business Tips