Fabric Beads

Of course the first stop when coming up with ideas for fabric beads is actually making the beads out of fabric.

This could take up a whole lens all on it's own because there are so many ideas and experiments that you could use.

You could make a really simple bead just by wrapping fabric around some stuffing. Of course you would be left with a funny rough bit of fabric sticking out at one end but maybe that would give you an interesting effect anyway. Check out the diagram below.

When I've made beads like this I've sewn them to the background textiles piece so that the funny gathered piece is hidden behind the bead.

Think about how you could structure beads from a pattern.

Search for patterns for making globes - look at the kind of patterns that are used for sport's balls.

As you can see from the image above, you can make a whole cluster of fabric beads simply by taking a piece of fabric and pushing balls of stuffing into it from behind.

These are made in exactly the same way as the first example I showed you but the beads are not made from one individual scrap of fabric but a big piece or fabric and the beads are left all attached to one another.

Wrapped beads are great if you want to produce a longer thinner bead (although this technique can also work well with shorter beads too).

They're great for showing off several layers at once - and can be very beautiful if you use more than one fabric.

Wrapped beads can also be melted into place to reveal all the different layers.

I use synthetic fabrics and plastic bags (as shown above) but you can also use Tyvek.

Why not make your fabric beads into mini textiles masterpieces?

You can embroider flat pieces of textiles and make them into beads, like I have with the discs below.

These were made from one large piece of embroidered, layered textiles.

I cut the textiles piece into circles and sewed two circular pieces backsides-together.

The edge of the bead disc was satin-stitched* to hide the raw edge of the textiles and then beaded with sead beads.

With these discs you have a wonderful opportunity for decorating the flat side of your textiles pieces - you could even machine embroider imagery onto them - mini portraits or landscapes - bigger versions would also be great as Christmas tree decorations.

*A word of warning - because the layers by this point were very thick I broke my first bobbin case this way! So try not to make your bead textiles piece too thick in the first place!

The obvious "textile" bead is the felt bead.

These can be simple or complex. They can be one plain colour or they can be decorated or stitched into.

Simple felt beads can also be used as a base for fabrics and textiles.

You could just as easily use bunched up wadding or even discarded fabric - this will give you a great base that you can stitch into.

In the images below you can see how I felted a pebble.

This is a great way to make big felt beads.

Just grab any pebble that you love the shape of.

Wrap wool around it, felt it. Wait for it to dry.

Cut a slit along one side, take the pebble out, stuff the felted casing to make a solid shape and sew it up.

I'm thinking about covering this bead with hand embroidery but other options include needle felting into it or dyes.

Don't want to fuss around with attaching beads to your textiles pieces afterwards?

How about incorporating shiny materials into the fabric to pick the light up, just like a bead would?

The sample below was made by stretching out stretchy lycra on a board, crushing blobs of silicone into the fabric, then rubbing gold (or silver) leaf into the silicone.

Once the stretchy fabric is unstretched the metallic blobs remain stretched and raised from the surface.

In the lower part of the textiles piece below you'll see some silver dots - these are the melted remnants of a piece of metallic voile I found to cover the top of the textiles piece with.

When I melted the majority of the voile away I was left with a few metallic threads and the gorgeous silver studs.

The effect below was made with beads of hot glue gun - think about making beads by trapping layers of fabric or paper in between glue.

The Bottle tops used below could easily be covered with fabric to make big chunky beads.

What else could you use as a starting point to make beads?

I've already mentioned straws and wooden cubes above but what else could you use?

The bead below was made by wrapping a knitted tie around a used thread spool and then tying it in place with ribbon yarn and handspun yarn.

The little bag I made below was inspired by a bobbly glass bead.

Think about how beads in other materials (like metal or wood, or glass) could inspire your textiles work.

How can you duplicate a certain look in textiles?