When I was in elementary school there was Native American owned store down the road from my house--I was dying to learn how they made their jewelry and my mom knew one of the ladies... She taught me the art of loom beading (of course now they have YouTube for these things) which was really awesome. I made a ton of jewelry from that point up through middle school. I even won a state-wide jewelry competition and received the honor of competing nationally!
Some time ago, I saw a necklace that upon first look was loom stitched and pretty neat. As I sat down to plan it out, I became quite confused at how they were able to taper off the ends of the rectangular loom stitch to create a diamond shape. The stubbornness in me refused to give up on the design, so I taught myself the brick stitch about two weeks ago.
With all things, nothing ever turns out exactly the way you imagine. Mine came out a bit bigger than I'd hoped, but overall I found that I enjoy the brick stitch, which seems to be a bit sturdier, but also more time consuming than the loom stitch. Regardless, creating this necklace has rekindled my love for crafting jewelry and I hope to continue making pieces--I've thought of some interesting designs of my own as well. Perhaps I'll post them to the blog.
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
