Book Review - The Complete Guide to Beaded Techniques

The Complete Guide to Beaded Techniques

By Jane Davis

Rating: 4

This book has such a great concept and so many techniques but I find the execution fairly poor. The projects look nice, if a bit old fashion but they are very pretty and diverse. The techniques range through most of the different ways to use beads, from bead weaving peyote, herringbone and right angle weave through knitting, crochet and embroidery.

The problem seems to lay in the breakdown of the technique and choice of what to teach. For example, peyote stitch is taught in the odd count. Even count peyote is mentioned but there is no sampler to explain it. While odd count is very useful, it is also a challenge for beginners to make the turn. I failed to learn peyote from this book when I first started beading. Then I tried it from a different book, starting with even count, and it was so easy. I now know odd count but the directions in the book seem overly complex to follow, even now that I know the stitch. I find most of the techniques are not well explained or broken down and more complex parts of techniques are shown first and in a strange order. I also find the use of ‘throw away’ row of stitching more work and unnecessary. The descriptions are accurate, I just fine them very hard to follow and learn from. 

Overall, the only thing I really like about this book are some of the patterns and ideas for projects and the overview of many different ways to bead.