Ok, so it's not so top secret since I am blogging about it. But none the less, I wanted to share how I bead. Everyone has their own techniques, but I think one thing we all want is the beading to lay as flat as possible without those weird beading puckers. You know that area around the beading that looks wrinkled even though you have ironed it ten thousand times.
So, I decided to take pictures of how I bead. Again, this is how I do it and I know everyone has their own style.
Below is the dress I am making / beading, it's the newest piece I am working on for my eco-friendly line to be hopefully featured in 928 Magazine soon. : )
The material is a natural hemp and the floral print is a lightweight cotton. I love the print, but noticed one layer was too thin to make a stable wedding gown out of. So, I backed it with the thicker hemp material, which is great for beading.
If you have one layer that is thick enough, but wanted to bead you will want to use a stabilizer to either back the whole area of what you beading or if you get the tear away stabilizer you can just tear away the stabilizer from part of the dress that isn't beaded. That would be perfect for appliques.
Below are the pictures, I barely started the beading, because I don't want to give away too much before the dresses debut. But I hope you enjoy : )
The first thing I do is make sure I bead on only one layer, if you go through the lining that's when things start shifting and it will look like you have an improper fit. Linings are tricky as is, especially when wedding gowns needs to be fitted.
If you bead through the lining that's when most of the "puckering" occurs and you can photo shop all you want in photos, but if you want to sell the gown, brides / clients can be very particular about things like that.
Notice that there are a total of three layers to the bodice, I added structure to the bodice by making the hemp material as an underlining and also "self-lined" it as the lining, using the same hemp material as I used in the underlining.
The hemp material acts as the stabilizer for my beading and I just have to remember to keep the beading tight, but not too tight or lose when I sew them on. The tension of the thread when beading needs to be consistent throughout the whole process. I like to sew each bead a total of two or three times to make sure they are secure.
That is the biggest difference between machine beading and hand beading, machine beading can fall off easily, because they don't knot the threads and the machines do it at a faster pace. Hand beading may take longer, but it's sustainable because your hand made stitches will last longer than that done by a machine.
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