Are you new to beading? Lucas Learns helps the beginner. Fantastic learning is found with Lucas Learns Lessons. Lucas Learns is collaboration between Sam Norgard (beading expert) and Lucas (beading newbie). Sam is an artist with years of experience beading and professing beading at various colleges. Lucas is an engineer with years of experience working with educational kits and making of many varieties. The result of the collaboration is a series of lessons where we follow Lucas diving down the rabbit hole of beading. Sam knows all the nitty gritty details, and Lucas dumbs them down to basic understanding.
{ a letter from Lucas }
Dear New Beader,
I met her children while Sam was professing at UW-Whitewater, and her house was filled with piles of beaded pieces, paintings and other curious art (it still is). Her beading station was always set up at the loveseat and she was always working on something or other (and she still is). I tried a bit of beading and was surprised by the hours it took to get anything done. How could these beads be so tiny? These pieces must take forever to make! Who would choose such a tiny medium willingly? But I left Sam to it.
Some years passed, life changed and progressed as it does. We were both trying to branch out, and decided that perhaps we should put our efforts together. She’s the brain, and I’m the brute. She’s the master and I’m the apprentice. We’ve hammered out the kinks so that you don’t have to.
We ask that you do not copy our material and pass it around – we appreciate your individual purchase as it makes it possible for us to do this work and create more.
Happy Beading – we hope you will find a home for passion and the joy of making.
Best Wishes,
Lucas
Learning. With Lucas.
In order to organize the vast amount of information in the bead world Lucas Learns is divided into major categories. We are starting with three categories. If you take the time to sample each of these categories it will be easy for you to tell which of these tugs at your heart strings. This will allow you to find the techniques you will be most happy with exploring further.
BEAD EMBROIDERY
- Sam suggests students start here.
- It is a great introduction to beading.
- Allows you to learn while working the beads on a backing, substrate, beading surface.
- Bead embroidery gives you something to hold onto while your fingers, hands and mind learn how to command the beads.
OFF LOOM
- Starting here will provide the lowest material startup cost.
- Created using only needle, thread and beads.
- It is woven in the air.
- Takes the most coordination and is likely easier to learn after doing a bit of embroidery and/or loom work.
- Off-loom work allows for a great deal of freedom and expression in form.
- Imagine making beaded ropes, geometrics or even the human figure!
LOOM
- Exactly what you are imagining – you are working on a loom.
- It is a bit different from traditional weaving.
- Warp threads are attached to the loom while weft threads are worked across the established warp.
- Two weft threads hold beads in place.
- Most feel that loom work is a bit faster than off-loom but there is more set up time involved.
What's in a Lesson Anyways?
All Lucas Learns lessons are downloadable and include a manual with diagrammatic and step by step instructions, and also in an instructional video. These lessons give a basis for learning beading: terminology, stitches, specified materials, instructions to build the wearable project, a creativity page to get some ideas, and a mini art lesson.
- A Starter lesson includes all the terms, material specifications, techniques, stitch instructions, and project instructions to make a completed piece of beadwork from knowing nothing about beading.
- A Progression lesson is based on your previous knowledge of techniques from the previous lesson. These prerequisite techniques are listed in case you already know some basic beading and want to progress. Progression lessons are the same in-depth instruction as a starter lesson, but not starting from square one
