Market Harborough WI members worked busily all evening, trying their hand at beadmaking.  They made a long, pendant style necklace or a keyring/handbag charm.  Andrea Greenaway, from Leicestershire Craft Centre, was the visiting speaker.  She shared beautiful, colourful samples of her work based on crafts that are taught at the Centre in High Street, Market Harborough.

Andrea Greenaway, Leicestershire Craft Centre

Andrea passed around two delightful necklaces that she had learned how to make herself recently whilst attending silversmithing courses (I hope I have the techniques right!).

She then demonstrated the art of simple beadmaking (or so we thought).  She showed us how to take a long piece of thick thread, fold it into four and then knot it to form your own tailor made necklace or to tie it to a keyring.  Then came the real challenge!  Having chosen our selected beads, which came in a huge variety of colours, sizes and textures, we had to thread the signature bead – not too difficult, as these tended to come with large holes.  So far, so good.  However, then we faced some real challenges for the evening, namely the ability to see small holes, licking the end of your thread to get a point and trying to get it through the holes in the beads.  Not so easy, as the hole sizes varied greatly, so, very quickly, carefully chosen, colour coded patterns were abandoned!  However, lots of good humour plus the encouragement of fellow WI members, and most people successfully produced their first piece of beadwork.  They proudly display their handiwork below.

Other samples of members’ handiwork:

Thank you, Andrea, for sharing your skills and patiently helping and encouraging us as we took our first, tentative steps.  Another excellent evening!