Beading becomes gateway to culture, community, contentment

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/03/2023 (985 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I recently learned how to bead.

Don’t get ahead of yourself when you imagine the things I am making. I am a novice, and my creations are amateur at best.

I can roughly embroider different beaded shapes and very simple designs onto the back of a piece of leather or felt, and while they are usually recognizable, none of them look clean or pristine.

I have yet to stitch together a straight line, but beading is a skill and a process. I’m a heck of a lot better than I was yesterday, but not quite as good as I am going to be tomorrow.

I learned a few weeks ago at the Southern Chiefs’ Organization’s Mino-si-toon Wichozani event.

There was a breakaway room that offered beading — learning with the help of a seasoned beader, willing to share her gift. There were little pre-made kits of red, orange and black beads to make red dresses or orange shirts from a stencil.

The process seemed easy enough, though tedious. Bead two at a time, and then thread back to reinforce before beading the next two. Over and over and over again, until art takes shape.

The red dress I was beading started off OK, but as my fumbling fingers poked the tiny needle through the felt-like backing, and sometimes the tips of my fingers again and again, my creation started to take on a different shape and looked more like a red blob of beads with a black border.

I took it apart, and made a heart instead. I reasoned I wasn’t ready for the shape of the dress. I’ll try again once I’ve had a little more practice.

I haven’t stopped since. It’s only been a couple of weeks, but I enjoy seeing the little bits of progress in each project.

Lines a little straighter. Spaces filled up. I can’t remember the last time a hobby gripped me so tightly.

Beading feels like healing. It feels like a connection to community and culture I am starving for, and it feels like a connection to myself. I am learning the art of patience and how to trust the process.

Sometimes, a project turns out fine or even better than fine and, sometimes, it needs to be undone and redone. That part is the most frustrating, though I’d never consider it time wasted because the mistakes are still good practice that make me better in the end.

I realized that the other day as I was hunched over the table, struggling to outline a simple heart design on a medicine bag I was making for my middle child.

My back was aching and my fingers felt raw from being pricked by the needle countless times. My thread kept tangling and no matter how hard I tried, I made mistake after mistake. How could I mess up something so simple?

I left it for a while; went and did something else. When I came back to it later, I took up where I left off, working to make my crooked lines a little bit straighter and determined to make less mistakes than last time, while accepting less doesn’t mean none.

Practice makes you better, but there are always going to be moments where you prick your finger or when you struggle to even just thread the needle.

Some days, no matter how good you are, you’re going to fumble, mess up, make mistakes, and things that aren’t usually hard are just a bit more difficult than usual.

Then there will be other days, where you’ll surprise yourself and be far greater than you thought you could be. Where somehow you’re just vibing and the universe seems to have aligned to make everything good and fall into place, and even your mistakes don’t seem as bad as the day before.

In any case, I am grateful for the hobby and all it has taught me so far.

shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @ShelleyACook