Laura McCabe's Embellished Beadweaving: A Book Review

Laura McCabe shares her techniques for making beautiful beadwork with just a few simple embellishment techniques. The project instructions are detailed and build on the basic techniques covered at the beginning of the book. After making a few of the projects in this book, you will begin to understand how bead choice and use of color can take your beadwork from ordinary to extraordinary.

Laura McCabe's Embellished Beadweaving: Jewelry Lavished with Fringe, Fronds, Lacework and More, Laura McCabe, $24.95, Lark Books

This latest volume in Lark Books' Beadweaving Master Class series is written by Laura McCabe, an award-winning bead artist and designer. This book, as you might be able to tell from the title, is about using beaded embellishment to turn your beadwork into something extraordinary.

Because Laura has a background in historical costume reproduction, she includes a chapter at the beginning of the book about the history of beads and their use in cultures throughout the world.

The Basic Beading Kit section of the book covers all of Laura's favored materials for doing beadwork and embellishing, including her preferred types of thread, seed beads, leathers and fabric backings, gemstone beads and cabochons, crystal beads and freshwater pearls.

Assuming that the reader of the book has some basic beadweaing skills, there are instructions for doing some basic beadweaving stitches including flat and tubular peyote stitch, spiral rope, and herringbone stitch. Laura also includes instructions for making some basic forms that can be used in a variety of ways and in many of the projects in this book.

The next two chapters in the book cover beaded embellishments and color and design. The chapter on beaded embellishments was particular interesting to me, because the embellishments Laura illustrates are actually pretty simple to stitch. As I read through the embellishments and tried each one, I realized that it is Laura's choice of beads, use of color and sense of design that turns these ordinary beaded embellishments into extraordinary beadwork.

There are eighteen projects in this book, including Laura's signature Dahlia Necklace, making it well worth the price of the book. Projects include earrings, bracelets, necklaces and rings, and all of them use two or more of the embellishment techniques detailed in the earlier chapters of the book.

For more inspiration, Laura has included a gallery of embellished beadwork by other artists that includes fourteen beautiful examples of using a variety of different embellishment techniques.

This book isn't just a great source of instruction for beaders; it's also a wonderful look into the work of one of today's most important bead artists. It's a great source of instruction and inspiration for beginner and more advanced beaders who want to try something different with their beads.