All those beautiful projects you've just been looking at in the video are made with bead weaving techniques. So, what is bead weaving? What are you about to start learning?

Technically, bead weaving can be done 'off-loom' or 'on a loom'. In this course I'm going to focus on 'off-loom' weaving.

So, you will be using a needle and thread to stitch beads together by hand. This could be to make jewellery, or to make ornamental work like pictures, boxes, pens, needle cases, stars, Christmas ornaments, and a whole lot more!

You have a variety of different techniques available. You also have loads of different types of beads that you can use.

Course outline

So, we're going to take a look at what you will need to get started. This is going to cover:

• basic tools
• thread
• beads
• findings
• bead weaving techniques
• basic beading terminology
• following beading patterns

A lot of the content for this course comes from my website, www.myworldofbeads.com. So, what I'm doing here is arranging the various blogs on that site into some sort of logical order. Then, adding extra information and tips. That should enable you to follow through the basics in the most helpful way.

You're not going to get any actual projects on this course, although I will point you towards projects that would be good to try.

I am also going to be adding to the course material. So, you might want to check back here regularly in case there is more information to help you.

You will also have the opportunity to ask questions and get personal tuition from me, using the comment boxes at the end of each section. Comments are visible to everyone on the course, so if you have information that could help someone else, you can also add it.

How will this help you?

When I started beading, I knew absolutely nothing. So, I just bought beads that I liked, I experimented with techniques and basically made it all up as I went along. This was just a hobby: the things I was making were for me and my enjoyment.

But, after a while, I was asked to make jewellery for other people. So, then I needed to know more about what I was doing. Was I using the best materials? Were my techniques going to last, or would the jewellery break after a couple of outings?

I fumbled my way through, learning by accident and by error. So, I wasted a lot of time and money making things with poor quality materials, or ordering beads or clasps that were just plain wrong for what I wanted to do.

There's nothing wrong with that approach. But looking back, I can't help feeling I would have made better progress if I'd been able to learn all these things before I spent money and made mistakes.

So, that's why I've set up this course: to help you start to learn about the materials and tools you'll be using. To give you some time-saving tricks and, generally, to help with that feeling of 'overwhelm' and panic.

The information you're about to get isn't 'the bible' (no offence intended), but it will give you a good start. You're still going to make mistakes, but embrace them: they are the best way to learn.

A bit of fun to start...

Now, before you move on to start learning, for a bit of fun, let's just see what you already know.

If you're trying to work out whether this course is going to be useful, then this quiz will help you decide.

If you ace all the answers, then you've already got good basic knowledge. Don't worry if you get everything wrong - that just shows you're going to benefit from this course and save yourself so much time! So, off you go...

So, how did you do?

I didn't make things easy for you there, I know. But if you got everything wrong, the good news is, you're about to start finding out what the correct answers should be and, more importantly, why!

So, without further ado, let's start discovering bead weaving...