r/Beading

This is one of my large-scale bead embroidery artworks.

The piece contains approximately 60,000 beads and took me around three months to complete, entirely by hand.

I use thousands of individual beads to recreate the depth, colour and details of a painting on textile. From a distance, it reads almost like a painting; up close, you can see every individual bead.

I love the process of transforming an image into something completely physical and tactile — one bead at a time.

This is my first post on Reddit, and I'm happy to share more about the process and answer questions.

Oh, how I love to play with shades. You might think these are overlapping parts. But no 😁 It’s another illusion created using just a single peyote stitch strip and brick stitch.

Reposting without the blatant typo (serves me right for posting from my phone).

Finished a second bead embroidered lily and really got to explore a full range of beautiful colors on this one!

I’m sharing my first beadloom piece I’ve finished today.
I know it has many flaws yet it is very meaningful to me for after years of mental health struggles I could finally create something!

The second picture shows some deformed beads I found during the work. I wonder if I was sold real Miyuki beads or got scammed? Is it common to have deformed beads from Miyuki? I thought they were the perfection of beads!

I made a few mistakes but I’m mostly pleased with my first try at bead weaving. I wish the fringe were less crooked… I tried to keep the tension loose, but alas.

I used matte black and red Miyuki 11/0 delicas and 2mm onyx beads for the tips of the fringe. I finished the earrings with bouillon wire and premade brass ear hooks.

11/0 delicas & fireline; strongly considering purchasing a different kind of thread that’ll allow more movement so big, flat pieces like these look cleaner

Thought I could make a few of these as Christmas gifts but now that I’ve put the first one together, I’m just really paranoid this might break on the recipient. The cord has an 8lb breaking point, I thought that would be plenty. I triple knotted as well.

It’s a little wonky but overall I’m happy with how it turned out. Can’t figure out how to post a video on here.