Inspiration Monday Book Review: Sherry Serafini's Sensational Bead Embroidery

Have you ever had an AH-HA! moment?  I had one this past weekend when reading Sherry Serafini's Sensational Bead Embroidery.  I am almost speechless over this book but I must write something since this is a book review.  Wow!  Amazing!  Fantastic!  Woohooo!  You probably still want to hear a little more detail then just those excited words of exclamation: I will try my best. 

I picked up this book for the first time on Friday night; having never, not once, bead embroidered before. The first thing that struck me about this book was the awesome photography. Sherry's sense of design and color combinations are simply scrumptious, a feast for the eyes. Instead of setting the designs against a white background, they were instead placed against a color, making them look even more impressive. So before even reading one word of this book, I was already drooling over the visuals. 

Because these projects look so amazing, and look very complicated at first glance, I will admit to having been intimidated and thinking "there is no way I can do that." Also, the instructions looked rather short for each project considering how elaborate they were, so I did go into this book a bit skeptically. However, I quickly learned otherwise.

When you first open this book, there is a good overview of the materials you will need and helpful tips about how to use them and what to choose. For instance, when talking about beading foundation, Sherry tells us to use Lacy's Stiff Stuff but she also shares that this can be dyed to match your beads and even washed. This is such a simple tip but hugely helpful. 

Sherry imparts other words of wisdom like this throughout the book, which I find to be just as valuable as the projects themselves. After the overview of materials, there are very clear instructions on how to do the common stitches in bead embroidery. Diagrams are also provided to make learning easier. Even though I had never bead embroidered before, it became quite clear that the basic stitches were really not that hard (thank goodness!) and that the designs looked so amazing because of the artist's placement of the stitches, and her choice of colors and the design and proportion of the larger focal beads. Now it made sense to me why the directions in the projects looked so short; it is because you learn the basic skills and then repeat them in various combinations. For the projects that have skills not covered in the beginning pages, there are additional diagrams and more detailed instructions.

my first attempt at bead embroidery! 

After reviewing all the projects, I decided to pick the one I thought looked relatively simple, and give this bead embroidery thing a try. The Sweet Simplicity Necklace on page 35 is lovely necklace that has a stunning focal cabochon, several rows of two-bead backstitch, and then an outer single-bead edging. If this does not make sense to you, do not worry, all these terms are explained in the beginning of the book. Following Sherry's instructions, I glued an antique button (sans shank) on Lacy's Stiff Stuff and then followed her directions to make my rows. When I got to the edge, I decided to add a picot edge (again, I learned how to do this in the beginning of the book) and finished off my round. I felt completely confident deviating from the pattern, because early on in the book, Sherry tells us "my advice on some of the projects is to let the beads take "road trips", meaning the beads will literally tell you where to go - in a nice way!" When I finished I was SO pleased with how my first bead embroidery project turned out. I have yet to finish the necklace portion of it, but my focal is done and I love it! I even made another little focal. I also now feel completely confident to try the other projects in this book.

In a nutshell, I am so very, very excited about bead embroidery and developing my skills. If you are looking for a new beading path to try, I would whole-heartily recommend this book. I feel that beaders of all skill levels can learn from Sherry's instructions and even more advanced bead embroiderers will be inspired by her designs. Do not be intimidated by this art form, it is not as difficult as it looks. If you start at the beginning, go step by step, you will see that you can definitely do this. Whereas learning a new skill is usually frustrating, I found learning bead embroidery through this book to be incredibly relaxing and soothing. I hope you give it a try and find it as enjoyable as I do.  A huge thank you to Sherry Serafini, her teaching skills, and this book - you have created one very happy, and one very inspired, bead embroiderer over here.


- Julie