beadweaving Archives - So Sassy By Susan Sassoon

Posted on June 1, 2020June 1, 2020 by Susan Sassoon — 2 Comments

Zoom Beading Classes!

I’m so happy to announce that I now have online Beading classes available for purchase on my website!

I’ve been working with my local bead store, Crystal Garden Designs of NY, to provide kits for the classes. We started out offering the classes to local store customers only, but beading friends from across the country began asking to sign up as well. Melissa from Crystal Gardens has been mailing out the kits each week to anyone, anywhere who wants to join in! This weekend, we even had a beader from the UK join us! Of course, some beaders may prefer to use their own supplies, and that’s ok with me as well. Crystal Gardens can also fill in any supplies you might not have in your stash. Just give Melissa a call at (631) 750-6430 or email at beadsamillionny@gmail.com and tell her what you need. She is happy to customize kits to color preferences.

Here are the classes currently on offer for the next few weeks. If you’re interested, please sign up quickly as they are filling up fast. I’ve limited the class size to 15 students to allow proper attention to each student. The class listing will show how many spots are left in each class.

When you purchase a class, you will be able to download two pdf files: One is a document with all of the Zoom information and the other is the pattern. Make sure you sign up early enough to allow you adequate time to order the suppies or kit.

If there are any of my designs that you would like to request for a future class, please leave a comment here or send me an email.

Zoom Class: Inkscape Bead Diagrams

$50.00 – $150.00

Rated 4.91 out of 5 based on 11 customer ratings

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Posted on June 10, 2019 by Susan Sassoon — Leave a comment

Free Pattern Available!

If you’ve never tried one of my patterns and would like a free pattern to see the quality of my work, you can sign up for my mailing list and I will send you a free exclusive pattern that is not available in my store!

I’ve heard some beaders say that they are afraid to purchase a pattern because they do not know what the quality of the pattern will be and they are worried that they will not be able to understand the instructions. I completely get that! I would like to offer you this pattern so that you can “try before you buy”.

The pattern is for an understated but funky chain made with bugle beads, seed beads and pearls. It can be worn on its own or used as a chain for a coordinating pendant. It can be made monochromatic, like my sample, or with contrasting colors. You can vary the design by using different size bugle beads and pearls. I’d love to see what you come up with!

The pattern was designed as a funky variation to my most popular pattern, Etherial. You can find the pattern for Etherial here: https://sosassybysusansassoon.com/product/etherial-netted-pearl-with-bugles-necklace-tutorial/

Posted on February 13, 2019 by Susan Sassoon — 7 Comments

2019 Beadwork Designer of the Year!

I’m so excited to have been chosen by Beadwork Magazine to be one of three Designers of the Year for 2019! It is a great honor, and one that I did not expect to achieve. I share this with fellow honorees Wendy Ellsworth and Vezsuzsi. I hope you’ll enjoy what we create this year along with Beadwork’s many other talented contributors.

As a Designer of the Year, I will be sharing the instructions to make one of my designs in each of this year’s six issues. The first (Feb/Mar) has already hit the press, and is available for purchase in print form or digital form at publisher Interweave’s website. In it, I present my Thistle Necklace. The design was inspired by the beautiful two-holed Kite beads and three-holed Cali beads that were sent to me by Beadsmith last year. As I played around with the beads, I found that they form very easy to make bezels that can be used to encase Swarovski rivoli crystals of all sizes.

Here’s what the components looked like on my bead mat as I worked on the design. Notice that some of them are open – without a rivoli inside them. Those were the first ones I made. Once I saw how pretty they looked open, I knew they would only be improved by adding some bling. Luckily, I had just the right color rivolis to add!

After making these components, I saw that Beadsmith came out with some new kite beads that had a laser-etched design on them. I fell in love with them and had to design something special with these. I used the same basic bezeled rivoli idea and made this necklace, bracelet and pendant.

The tutorials for the necklace and bracelet are available here: Kite and Cali Necklace Kite and Cali Bracelet

Kite and Cali Poinsetta bracelet tutorial

The design also works well for Christmas as the design looks a lot like a Poinsettia when beaded with red kite beads. The tutorial for the bracelet includes the supplies needed to make it in either the laser-etched beads or the poinsettia beads.

As I just couldn’t get enough of these fun components, I played around with some variations of the open-holed components that I had originally created (I hate letting good beadwork go to waste). Here’s what I created with the open components.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of insight into my design process and I hope I’ve inspired you to create some lovely beadwork! Please share your thoughts and your beadwork in the comments.