Face to Face: Meet Claire Ambler

Our newest Face to Face interview with our fellow beaders and designers is here! We keep introducing beaders from the Beadingschool community.

Community is a big part of the Beadingschool philosophy and our life as beaders. We come from all over the world, have a different cultural background, life experience, but are connected through the love for beading. We also love to laugh together and share our journey, making friends on the way. Our next beader may not post that many of the jewelry pictures in the Club, but she’s in the group, on the life video broadcasts, always to share a good joke (or a pink piglets candy :D) with all of us, commenting and supporting others. She is caring, loving, and part of the Beadingschool Club community!

 

Meet the Beadingschool Club member, beader and friend, who loves to laugh and bring her positive spirit everywhere

Claire Ambler!

Please tell us about yourself a bit! When and how did you start to create? How did you learn to bead?  

안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)  Hello.  I discovered beading about 16 years ago by accident.  I blame my younger daughter for pushing me down the beading rabbit hole.  She is a dancer and I started off by making headdresses for the dance school she attended.  I discovered that I am the Queen of the Glue Gun and can turn a plastic comb; feathers and sparkly bits into fancy headwear.  I should point out that this is before I discovered those Austrian Crystals whose name shall not be mentioned.  I eventually got to the stage where I wanted to expand my skills and went on a two day course to learn how to make tiaras which coincided with my husband being at home to look after our daughters.  I enjoyed the course so much that I asked my husband if he minded looking after the girls for another couple of days while I went back to learn beading.  He agreed and the rest, as they say, is history!  Although I still dabble with other crafts, beading is my main hobby.

 

Is beadwork your hobby or profession? How does your average day look like? When do you have time to create?  

Beading is purely a hobby.  I have been commissioned to make some bracelets and although I enjoyed the creative process,  the fact that I had a time constraint totally changed how I felt about the work.  I don’t spend as much time on beading as I would like to now that I have retired from my day job (I was a swimming teacher for over 20 years) because a friend and I procure costumes for a local dance school’s shows.  I am also learning Korean which is another passion in my life  – my husband would actually say obsession.  Most of my friends ask “why?” but I really would like to watch K-Drama without being so reliant on subtitles.  Korea is a fascinating country with an amazing history and culture. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the lead actors are rather gorgeous!

 

What did beading bring to your life?

When I started beading, I had no idea of where it would lead me. I just wanted to make headdresses for the shows with more sparkle and variety but I have met so many interesting people and made some great friends over the years.  For almost ten years I have gone away with friends on a retreat  near Bath.  In the beginning we were split roughly 50/50 between beaders and embroiderers but gradually over the years, I am the last woman standing from the beaders.  In 2023 I added GBBS (Great British Bead Show) to the list of residential beading I attend and was very fortunate to meet Erika and Zuzi in person.  I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to be in all three of Erika’s classes. By the way what happened at GBBS stays in GBBS but for a G&T, I could be persuaded to spill the beads – or could I? 

 

 

We noticed you connected with another of the beaders (Neeti) and you became friends. 

One of the best beading friends I have made through the Beading School has to be Neeti Khanna-Mehrotra.  She saw a photo of myself; Erika; Zuzi; Anzelika and Mehtap at GBBS on our first night at the hotel.  Neeti proceeded to tell me off and said that I should get another photo taken but with me in it!  I had to confess that actually I was in the photo, I was the one with blonde hair because my profile picture is of me with my friend who has dark hair.  Neeti and I started corresponding when she posted a picture of a brooch that she’d made but had decided she was going to unpick it as she wasn’t happy with it.  I immediately offered to adopt it as I thought (and still think) that it was far too nice to unpick.  After trying to work out the logistics of getting the brooch to me, it turned out that Neeti lives near my ex-neighbours who now live Canada and who we were going to see later in the States. Long story short, the brooch was posted to my neighbours who took it to the States for me to collect nine months later.  Later in the year my husband and I decided to visit our neighbours in Canada and, of course, that visit would not have been complete without meeting up with Neeti.  We were fortunate that we managed to meet up several times and each meeting was full of laughter and joy.  Thank you Neeti for being my friend, you are a kind, lovely lady.  Here’s to our next meeting!

 

 

Tell us about the piece of jewelry you are the most proud of! 

Oh gosh, this is so difficult to answer.  I’m proud of the jewellery I made with the online Swedish Bead Along four years ago, mainly because I was perched with my leg on a stool having had a DVT the week before the classes started.  I am also proud of the pieces I make through the Beading School because the patterns are so good that the finished products are perfect and I always get compliments.  However, the piece I am working on now designed by Laura Guisti has to be up there as one of my favourites.  My lovely historical K-dramas have inspired my colour choice and the pattern, although looking very complicated, is in reality very simple. 

 

Where do you like to create? Do you have a designated area in your home where you keep your beads? Can you show it to us?

In theory I have a lovely summer house to work in but it’s a work in progress and needs a good sorting out this year before I can use it again.  Otherwise, I bead wherever I can fit my beading mat, whether that’s on the dining room table or in the kitchen.  Have mat, will bead! 

 

 

What is your favourite stitch? Which colours do you like the most? On the other hand, is there any colour or colour combination you try to avoid? 

 

I don’t have a favourite stitch but I’m quite happy to see RAW in a pattern (it was the first stitch I learnt).  However, CRAW is another matter.  Since joining the Beading School Club, my colour choice has been challenged and I’m now using colours that I might have tried to avoid in the past.  Being of Nordic colouring, I am drawn to the blue palette but K-Dramas have some interesting colour combinations and I find that I am drawing inspiration from those.

 

 

Do you follow instructions or do you like to develop your own designs? How would you define your style?  

Ah I’ve been rumbled, haven’t I?  I keep reminding myself that I need to read the 십팔 (sibpal) instructions but invariably I don’t.  Either it means I have to frog what I’ve just beaded or, if I’m lucky, I can fudge it and I have to admit that I will try fudging first.  (By the way if you Google translate my Korean, it will tell you that I have typed “eighteen”, I think you can work out that there is an alternative meaning).  I would like to develop my own designs but how can I compete with all the great designers in the Club?

 

Who are your favorite designers? Why? 

There are way too many designers that I like (and I apologise to anyone I’ve missed out).  Suffice to say that (and this is not in any particular order) Erika; Zuzi; Anzelika; Anita; Melanie de Miguel; Heather Kingsley-Heath; Chloe Menage; Sian Nolan; Laura; Annette Bolton and Liisa Turunen are up at the top of my list. I like that most of their patterns are quite simple to make but have such a wow effect when worn.

 

Do you have a favorite design by Erika? Tell us about it!   

 I was going to say how could you ask me to choose, it’s like asking who is your favourite child. However, spending a few minutes thinking about it, the choice is easy.  It has to be Star Storm as it’s my go to pattern when I am stuck for something to make.  I have made so many sets in lots of different colours that I can almost make the motifs without a pattern. 

 

 

Which is the bead / component in your stash which you treasure the most? Do you already have plans on how to use it?

It’s not a bead or a component which I treasure the most but a tool, 미안합니다 (mianhabnida) sorry about that.  It’s a recent discovery and I love it.  I offered to make a jewellery set for a friend whose son was getting married last year.  The earrings were no problem but I couldn’t find a bale for the pendant as nothing seemed to fit in with the colouring or design.  Eventually, I saw a pair of stepped pliers and I thought I might be able to bend an earring post into a circle.  I bought the pliers and held my breath as I started bending the earring.   There was a big sigh of relief when it worked.  Having discovered that I can make bales to match earrings, I’ll certainly be using this technique again. 

 

If you could design something for a well-known person or maybe a fictional character from a film or book, who would it be, and why? 

You might have guessed by now that K-Dramas are my second obsession so if ever I was lucky enough to choose my dream job, then it would be to work on costumes for a historical K-Drama (or even a historical C-Drama – Chinese Drama).  The colour combinations; the materials used and the overall opulence of the costumes makes my fingers itch to touch and tweak their appearance.

 

What are your plans for the future as a beader? Is there something you would really like to learn? 

Firstly to master CRAW and then, maybe, to try my hand at designing.

 

 

Thank you for answering my questions, Claire!

It’s wonderful to bead and laugh with you! We wish you lots of creative ideas, travelling and connecting with your beady-friends  in the future!

 

Dear beading-friends and beadwork admirers, please, use the comment section if you have more questions you would like to ask, or greet our Claire.

Stay tuned for more interviews for Beadingschool.com by Erika Sándor!