The Beader’s calendar: December jewel!

The DECEMBER pendant by Heather Kingsley-Heath is our December jewel!

CLICK HERE FOR THE TUTORIAL!

With the Beader’s Calendar, you receive a luxury quality calendar to hang on the wall, with 12 projects you can bead during the year, designed by the Beadingschool Creative Team (Erika, Zuzi, Veronka), and our friends – designers: Heather Kingsley-Heath, Anita Schackmann, Chloe Menage, Ruxandra Puscas, and more! 🧵🪡 On the first Monday, the tutorial becomes available for the month’s jewel, so today is the time for the second one already. If you don’t have the Calendar yet, you can get it here.  Once you check out successfully, you can download the Leilani for November, Francine  for October,  Eblouissants for September, Soleil for August, Serena for July, Roxanne for June, Spring in Bloom for May,  Magnolia tutorial for April,  Casablanca tutorial for March,  Inception tutorial for February and the Hint of Light tutorial for January right away – just make sure to remain logged into your account. The Calendar will land on your bead mat very soon!

GET TO KNOW THE DESIGNER

Hi, I’m Heather and I love beads. I also love textiles and metal, but most of all I love using colors and creating shapes. I design and teach beading, mostly with thread and seed beads, but occasionally include some silk or velvet, or some gentle wire work. I love all the beadwork techniques, from bead embroidery through to Prismatic Right Angle Weave, mixing them together creates really interesting textures. Vintage and history are great sources of inspiration, soft metallic colors and antique-looking pearls and crystals are a favorite.

I started beading by looking at books and bits of beading in museums, then I took a few classes with beadwork artists I admired, like sisters Wendy Hubrick and Sue Jackson, the inspirational David Chatt, and queen of divine details Cynthia Rutledge. When my friend opened an embroidery shop with a lovely teaching room she asked me to go along and show people how to bead. My beading career just grew from there.

I love travelling to meet up with beaders. I discovered a whole different way to work in 2020, via zoom. It’s fun to welcome everyone into my home and workspace. Zoom is great, I have a whole workroom full of beading and samples I can share on-screen, when we start discussing ideas. Way more than I could ever get into a suitcase or on to a long haul flight.

The second episode of my beading life is writing about beadwork. I enjoy spending time exploring museum archives, digging out the thread paths of the past. It’s important to keep techniques developing and moving and to rediscover lost ideas and methods. I wrote three books about Albion Stitch, a technique I developed from many experiments. It appears often in my work and it’s my go-to for ‘drawing’ with beads. It’s ideal for beading bezels for stones with corners or irregular edges. I also co-authored ’Tudor Inspirations’ with Melanie de Miguel. We teach more of the elemental beadwork we introduced in the book at beading retreats here in England. My bead boards are full of in-progress pieces for magazine articles, upcoming workshops, and yes, more books.

ABOUT THE DECEMBER PENDANT

With DECEMBER by the master beader and designer, Heather Kingsley-Heath we’re about to start the season celebration and close the year we beaded together.

The tutorial provides instructions on how to create bezel for the 12 mm cushion cut/square cabochon and add 8 mm bezelled chatons, with decorative pearls, and fire-polished beads all around. Add sparkly drops to make the pendant even more festive!

DECEMBER keeps the elegance through working with square stitch bezels, this time, also for the cushion cut cabochon. Experiment with the bezells and create matching earrings, brooch or bracelet.

CLICK HERE FOR THE TUTORIAL!

MATERIAL LIST for one motif:

• 1 x 12 mm Preciosa Cushion Cut
• 4x 8 mm Preciosa Chaton
• 24x 4 mm round glass beads
• 32 x 3 mm fire-polished beads
• 3x 6×10 mm Preciosa drop pendant
• 15/0 Miyuki Seed beads
• 11/0 Miyuki Seed beads
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica
• findings to customize your jewel.

December Elegance – The first colorway in gold and earthy tones.

Sparkly Sky – The shades of blue in opal, pearlescent and aqua combined with bronze tones.

Wild Rose Kiss – Romantic purples with fuchsia and gold tones.

SEE THE BEAD BUNDLES!

The winter time full of magic got us together with Heather one more time. Last year it was ‘The Winter Tale’ Academy Theme where Heather co-created the box and designed wonderful jewels for us. We learnt from her bracelet, pendant, earrings…

I’m honored we can cooperate and continue to learn from her beadwork and the designs.

If you like to bead more from Heather’s jewels, big or small, you can choose from the Designer Zone.