Customer Reviews

Fiber & Bead Jewelry: Beautiful Designs to Make & Wear

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
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This large colorful book has illustrations on almost every page - essential for a book designed to teach a skillful art. Helen Banes developed this unusual wearable art by combining beads, pins, buttons, found objects in a woven neck piece. This book elaborates the technique described in her first book. The first half is a rich display of her art in work influenced by a variety of cultures, i.e., African, ancient Egyptian, Indian, pre-Columbian, etc. The second half concentrates on the more practical aspects of the art. Included are step by step instructions, full scale patterns, supplies needed and availability of hard to find items, and in addition an excellent bibliography and index. Perhaps the most important aspect of this book is the stimulation of the imagination and the inspiration to accomplish one's unique creations. Some degree of needle skill and knowledge of tapestry techniques would be very helpful to the person attempting to make a necklace, and certainly having both her books is valuable.

Finally, a chance to read the artist's statement! This book takes the creativity of the technique and the philosophy behind developing these necklaces to a more intimate and personal level. Each necklace designed and illustrated by Helen is described in detail regarding the story of the inspiration behind it whether it was a bead, a person, or a textile piece. She shares her love for fiber and beads in order to inspire us to move from the craft to the art form she has created. This is no more, no less a beginners' book than "Beads and Threads", co-authored by Diane Fitzgerald and Helen. The process of making a necklace is exacting but in order to really understand the process you need this book.

Half of this book is taken up with the author talking about how she developed this method of jewellery making. There is only a handful of patterns included, and nearly all of those are incomplete. The patterns look at the centre of the necklace, not always at the sides (the bits that go around your neck, some of which are quite complicated).

There is pretty much no advice on how to use this technique to create your own pieces (other than to suggest changing the colours of the included patterns).

This book is best suited to people who are willing to spend the time learning the techniques and ready for a lot of trial and error in creating unique designs.

There are also no alternative materials suggested, what's on the list is what, apparently, you will use, so you also need to be prepared to experiment if you can't get the right materials, or be confident in your yarn choosing abilities!

In short, this book lacks a lot of potentially useful info that would have fitted nicely in the "let's talk about me" section at the front.

Weave colored fiber and beads into necklaces using the weaving techniques and design ideas demonstrated in the Banes' book. Fiber & Bead Jewelry features beads from many cultures and different types of patterns, featuring innovative techniques easily learned. The basic supplies needed are few and the prior beading experience minimal; making Fiber & Bead Jewelry the perfect design guide for beginners.

This is Mrs. Banes' second book. I have found "Fiber and Bead Jewelry: Beautiful Designs to Make and Wear" to be a wonderful resource and a continuing inspiration. It's filled with gorgeous photos of Helen's magnificent needlewoven necklaces.

Here's what I really liked:

- In addition to covering the basics of technique, design, and layout,there are lots of ideas for embellishment of your necklaces and a variety of entirely new patterns to play with and enjoy. I particularly like the idea of using crocheted elements to embellish the weaving. The crochet provides texture and depth to the necklace design.

- The patterns included in this book vary in terms of complexity.

- Many of the patterns are vertical warp designs, but Helen introduces the idea of using horizontal warping in the design of several necklaces and she compares several designs done both ways so you can clearly see the differences.

- There's an all new section of step-by-step instructions for creating a needlewoven necklace that has lots of photos and illustrations.

- There's another section that provides a lot of ideas for creating necklace straps and closures of various kinds. I think that adding straps to your necklace can be tricky and that good closures and fasteners can be difficult to design.

"Fiber and Bead Jewelry" is a book that I come back to again and again. Helen's work takes the reader to a higher level and never fails to inspire me to try new things.

Like Helen's first book "Beads and Threads," inspirations for her elaborate collars can come from anywhere. A piece of kuba cloth stimulates the creation of her "Spirit of Africa" neckpiece. Compared to Helen's earlier book, this book's collar designs are a bit more ethnic.

Helen incorporates Tory Hughes's faux stones made from polymer clay, taking advantage of the clay's lighter weight to prevent neck strain in what might be uncomfortable if real stones were used.

The set-up of the book may seem backwards, at first view, because a gallery of completed collars are shown one after the other, followed by technique and design elements. Seeing page after page of gorgeous weavings will make you say, "I want to learn how to do this!" After you make this decision, here are lessons on focal point, color, texture, rhythm, balance and scale.

Helen's designs cannot be copied stitch-for-stitch nor are they meant to be. What she teaches you is a general off-loom weaving technique and encourages you to use the technique in whatever direction you choose it to go. I took a class from her several years ago and she taught us how to set up the pins and warp, then turned us loose. The hardest part of the class was the preparation -- choosing the thread, ribbon, and yarn for the weft and the elements to incorporate into the weaving.

Good points:
-nice lush pictures and tons of them
-patterns that are easy to throw on the copy machine for quickboards
-nice little history on fiber jewelry
-great idea book if you are already familiar with fiber/bead jewelry
-materials are cheap, embroidery floss, foam board some glue and pins/needles and some cheap beads and you're good to go

cons:
-backwards format of book history/photos/then the how to part
-the directions arn't great so if you haven't done fiber weaving with woof and warp before you might get lost.