I am by no means a beading expert. I am much more proficient and capable when it comes to needlepoint and embroidery. You can guess my knowledge of beading supplies is practically as limited as my beading experience supplies is. However, I had the fortunate experience of working on a piece that called for said beading supplies. In other words, I got an instant lesson or two.
The first discovery I made, while viewing the pattern for the embroidery piece that called for beading supplies (which I found out AFTER I bought the beautiful pattern), was that beads are, of course, of different types. Okay you might think you know what I’m talking about but I doubt you appreciate the significance of it. There are literally hundreds of types and styles of beads in a typical store thousands (no exaggeration) in a large one. So for my particular pattern I needed 00275 coral glass seed beads; 02024 heather mauve glass seed beads; 02025 heather glass seed beads; 03005 platinum rose antique glass beads; and 05555 new penny glass pebble beads—all by a maker of bead supplies called Mill Hill.
Why do all these infinitesimal details matter? Why do I have to write everything down, including there specific codes? First, I live (by choice) way the hell out in the woods, the closest crafts stores twelve and nineteen miles away. I need to the right beads the first time I visit a store because I simply can’t reverse the wheel upon discovering that I have bought the wrong color. Second, I have ADD—Attention Deficit Disorder. A missing bead means the piece cannot be completed. And third, the pattern, an elaborate one with thousands of stitches and almost fifty colors, would need the right bead supplies to make the color scheme and texture, etc., work. It does not make sense to substitute just any shade in there.
The first store, one I like very much and frequent, had limited bead supplies of the brand I needed. In fact, they didn’t/don’t carry Mill Hill. So I came back home and searched the Internet to see if I could identify the color and style of bead and try to find some substitutes. Back to the first store and to a wall of bead supplies, I felt dizzy and confused. So I tried the next store, another town away, on another day. There I encountered not just one but three walls of bead supplies, of numerous brands, colors, sizes, shapes, and usability degrees. I spent a good hour perusing the beautiful, the ugly, and the ill-fitting beads for my project. I gave up and moved on to the rest of the items on my list. After another half hour, I found, in the NEEDLEPOINT section, not in the bead supplies section, argggh, Mill Hill beads. And of the five styles I needed found 2 in the exact quantity required and one in half the amount I needed.
Sometimes a LOT is too much…and not nearly enough. Of probably five- to ten-thousand dollars’ worth of bead supplies, I came away with five dollars’ worth of the right beads. Thank God for the internet. It made my life so much easier. Perhaps next time I should order online in the first place.
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