Honorable Mention, Professional Non-Original With Instruction

In April 2014 my EGA chapter had the pleasure of hosting Carolyn Sherman for her two-day workshop, English Garden Box. Using her design as a guide, she instructed us in a wide array of beading techniques, starting us out on a doodle cloth, and then moving on to the primary ground for our final efforts.

Sherman taught us several bead attachment techniques, as well as two variations for attaching cabochons, how to stack beads for height and depth, and how to string them together to make spirals and lacy hedges. We learned how to create beaded branches and leaves in hand and attach them to our design. It was a marvelous two days.

She gave us the freedom to follow her design, or take off and create our own English garden, using as many beads and embellishments as we wanted or allowing more ground fabric to be visible and become an integrated part of the overall design. There were no rules. Sherman’s kit was very generous: there were bags of beads in sizes 8 to 15 in several color families, and a wondrous little bag of embellishments and sequins.

After the workshop was over, my garden languished for a while in my stash. I was afraid to spread all these goodies out and then have my kitties decide to come and play in my lap. In summer 2017 I finally was determined to give it a go, spreading everything out on a padded cookie sheet so it could be set up high when I wasn’t beading.

Once I started again, it was like eating potato chips. I couldn’t stop. More beads, more sequins; add another butterfly; make a pond for the turtle! And oh, there is a ladybug also; and never enough sequin flowers!

My English garden went to seed in front of my eyes, but oh, did I have fun!