Woman finds bliss in beading

Blame it on the Victorian-era beaded purse Debbie Dolley’s mother-in-law gave her as a gift. With the beaded bag, Dolley found bead bliss, and it wasn’t long before she was designing and making bead jewelry.

“I love the texture, the feel, the look, everything,” Dolley, 53, of Holden said of beading.

Dolley has been crafting things since she was a child, skills she learned from her mother and grandmother, but beading was new to her.

“I always loved designing,” she said.

Yet, for 29 years, her career wasn’t about beads or designing, it was about teaching French and Spanish at Brewer High School. It also was about raising, training and showing Newfoundland dogs – but that’s another story.

When she retired from teaching several years ago, Dolley found that she missed teaching and her students. Then she discovered someone else to teach – herself. She taught herself the intricate work of bead weaving, bead looming, bead tatting, bead carding and the jewelry-making skills that go along with beading.

“Beading,” she said, “lends itself to self-teaching.”

She bought a bead-weaving kit, completed it and almost immediately began plotting her own designs. She still has the piece she made from that kit.

Dolley’s studio overlooks the backyard of her home and light floods in from windows on three sides. A large table holds a treasure trove of glass beads, including seed, rocaille and bugle in an astounding range of sizes from minute to major, and in colors of all hues from matte finish to iridescent. Most of the beads are made in Japan; others in Czechoslovakia, some in India. She has beads of Austrian crystal, wood and semi-precious stone.

“I have a plethora of everything,” she said. “You can incorporate just about anything into beading.” Some of her pieces feature abalone, brocade ribbon and sea fossil beads.

“I fall in love with specific beads,” she said, “and I can’t wait to use them.” A current favorite is a white and blue ceramic bead she is working into a necklace done in a spiral stitch.

All cultures have beading traditions, Dolley said, and she admires American Indian beadwork in particular. Once when she was at a craft show, a Maine Indian beadworker praised her technique of combining Seneca, Penobscot and other Indian beading techniques.

“I was so touched by what she said, I almost cried,” Dolley said, “because Native Americans are the grandmothers of beading culture.” That encounter fueled her hope of meeting other Maine Indian beadworkers to learn from them and to share what she knows.

“There’s a lot of sharing in [the world of] beading,” she said.

And true to that philosophy, Dolley offered to share with By Hand readers some of what she knows about beading. For basic information about beading and how to get started, she suggests books by Carol Wilcox Wells. For information about American Indian beading, she recommends David Dean’s “Beading in the Native Tradition.”

Beads are available at all the “big box” stores, she said, including Wal-Mart, Jo-Ann Fabrics and Target. She said the Craft Barn in Ellsworth also is a good source of beads. She also buys beads online and suggests that neophyte beaders visit www.beadbox.com, www.beadcats.com and www.whimbeads.com, which offers free patterns and beadwork tutorials. Also, www.beadwork.about.com offers tutorials and free lessons via e-mail.

Dolley’s advice to budding beaders comes from her own experience: “Go with what you are passionate about and create for yourself,” she said.

Dolley shows her work at United Craftsmen of Maine shows five times each year.

To obtain more information about Dolley’s work, e-mail dolley@midmaine.com.

Snippets

Mark your calendars for the Fiber Frolic June 12-13 at the fairgrounds in Windsor. Attractions include felting, dyeing and rug hooking workshops, animals that produce fibers and a llama drill team.

Ardeana Hamlin welcomes suggestions. Call 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.