The bead-along is still going strong and today I headed off to The Bead Merchant open day in Coggeshall to join in with over 70 other beaders - amazing!

It was wonderful to see my first finished pieces in the flesh and by the end of the day there was such an array of colours it was overwhelming.

When I first decided to do the bead-along last year I had hoped a few hundred people would take part but now it's at over 5,000 patterns distributed for free and beaders from all around the world joining in and sending me photos or posting them on the bead-along's Facebook page. It has been inspiring to see how many people took on the challenge (and it was a tricky one- choosing beads and colours when you don't know the finished result is hard!) and I have seen so many great colour schemes my mind is racing with ideas.