I really love all of the Beadweaving Master Class books for their strong focus on one specific type of beadwork for beginner to intermediate beaders who want to learn more techniques to use in their designs.

Laura McCabe's Embellished Beadweaving : Jewelry Lavished With Fringe, Fronds, Lacework and More focuses on those elements that take a plain beadwoven piece straight into art. All those extras that create texture and feel.

The introduction includes basic beadweaving stitches, explanation of bead types and other materials you will use. It's well illustrated and easy to follow if you need a refresher on how to do herringbone or another stitch.

Then it covers the techniques used in the projects in the book. How to create fringe the looks like flowers, clusters of berries, fronts and leaves. How to create sculptured flowers using netting and peyote techniques and how to make shaped leaves. All of it is well illustrated with very clear and easy to read diagrams. In places where the beads stack up in a way that a scale diagram wouldn't be helpful, the beads are shown spaced out in the rounds they are worked in to make it clear and easy to follow.

I'm a huge fan of this kind of embellishment because it's a fantastic use of seed beads for a great effect. Seed beads, being fairly inexpensive, make it a very affordable way to create wearable art.

The projects are fantastic. They have visual and tactile appeal, and are well explained and illustrated.

My favorite projects include:
Keshi Pearl Necklace, which is shown on the cover. It's a spiral rope that's covered with embellishments.
Star Flower Earrings which use spiky embellishment worked around larger beads for a fabulous over the top look with a unique shape.
Well-Kept Secret, a wonderful treasure vessel necklace, between the sculptural shape of the vessel and the studded embellishments, it's a very special necklace.

I'm sorry it took me so long to recommend this book to all of you. I really thought I'd reviewed it earlier and just searched for my review to find I hadn't.

You can get this book directly from the publisher,Lark Crafts, or by clicking the Amazon.com affiliate link below.


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Lark Crafts provided this review copy of Embellished Beadweaving to me free of charge.
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