A Book Blast From The Past

posted: Monday, 17 March 2014

Unpacking everything we had stashed in the loft in our last house has been a true wander back in time. So many things I had forgotten even existed. One treat was the discovery of a box of items from the first and second books I ever did: Beading for Beginners and The Big Book of Weekend Beading.

It's been so long since I've looked in either book that, if asked, I would have genuinely struggled to tell you what projects I had put in each one, so it was a treat to unpack them and be reminded of making them.

The weekend book had lots of bead embroidery projects and first up I discovered an embellished scarf which I now remember sketching out and beading samples for. It has now been moved from a dusty box to prime position by the front door and I hope to wear it and enjoy it soon.

I also found one of the only projects from that book that I did remember, an initialled lavender sachet. I had beaded a 'D' on this intending to give it to my mum and then promptly packed it away. Maybe Mothers Day 8 years on is the perfect time to gift it to her? I wonder if she'd like a table runner also?

When making a beading book, which has photos for the steps, you generally need to make a separate sample for every single step as it's considered the expensive photographer's time is far more important that the poor old beader's and they can't be expected to wait whilst you add beads one by one. This means over the years I have spent many, many hours making samples, each with just one or two beads more than the previous one. Each of these many hundreds of samples I had hung onto as the beads and time spent on them seemed too much to just throw them away but now years on I know I'm never going to take them apart and try and find whatever bag or tube they came from and so into the bin they go.

Cleaning out is proving to be both fun and freeing as I realise that I don't need to hold onto every memento from my life to enjoy it.