Sewing Your Seeds

I met Christina at the Sturbridge bead show, and was so impressed by her work, that I will probably get back into beading after at least 12 years of being away from it.

I used to do mostly amulet purses, and did really well with them until eBay became flooded with a bunch of them from Singapore, which sold for $14. Then I began hearing from customers that the $30 to $60 that I was charging for mine was too much!!!

Well, we all know how much it costs to buy the beads, and how much work it is to make them, so I'm sure you know that at those prices I was practically giving them away.

Then I donated a beautiful bag made with the real gold delicas, (Can't remember what they were called it was so long ago), to the great TV auction that our public television station put on, and it only went for $15. After that I had someone steal 7 bags out of my store, and I just got frustrated and gave up on them.

I have photos of them here:

http://kathilawson.com/ap.html

and here:

http://kathilawson.com/bags.html

as well a a couple of antique beaded purses I have.

Excuse the website, I made it way back in 1996 and 97, and I haven't touched it since then. In those days, most people were still using a screen resolution of 640x480. I was using 800x600, so my pages look pretty funky! I also didn't have a good camera, so you can barely see some of the older ones. I just taped them to a white door and used an instamatic on the ones in the second page. The ones on the first page are a little better, because I photographed them later.

Anyway, I need to get back into beading and this time, I'm not giving my stuff away like I did before!

I also bought a bunch of Christina's patterns at the show, and I can't wait to try them out. If you've never seen her work in person, you are really missing out! Her work is really exquisite. The photos on here don't even begin to show how tiny and intricate her work is.

Kathi!! Thanks so much for the very kind words!!! That is very nice of you!! I am so happy to be an inspiration to you!! I say delete Ebay and go to Etsy and naturally keep your own website! I look forward to seeing new works from you!! Youramulets are beautiful!!! I don't care what people say either, amulets are still pretty popular and I usually don't have any trouble selling them, which also explains why I only have 2. I am amazed I hadn't run across your site before!! i am an internet surfer hehe

Hi Kathi! nice to meet you
I love beaded bags too! I have crocheted one - the same pattern as yours from the book "Classic Beaded Purse Patterns"
http://nataliesperlen.blogspot.com/2009/01/perlentasche-fast-antik.html
I'm crocheting one more bag with beads now, by my own pattern