| What Is Loom Beading? Loom beading is a kind of | | | | clay, coral, and shells to design gorgeous |
| hybrid of the arts of weaving and beading. Like | | | | necklaces for ritual exchanges, beginning at the |
| weaving, beading has been around for thousands | | | | latest in 1000 BCE. The development here was |
| of years. It has also been an important historical | | | | that clay beads allowed a maker to shape a |
| and cultural element. Peoples from all over the | | | | material without needing to drill a hole. The faience |
| world have strung beads onto necklaces and | | | | beads invented in modern-day Iraq or Egypt |
| other accessories, since the dawn of modern man | | | | accomplished the same thing. Ceramics of quartz |
| and maybe even before. While not as essential to | | | | sand and colored glaze, these beads could be |
| survival as weaving--after all, beading is | | | | turned out quickly, easily, and relatively cheaply. |
| fundamentally a means to adornment or | | | | This led to a bead explosion in the region, |
| decoration, rather than addressing a basic human | | | | particularly in the areas of the ancient Egyptian |
| necessity--beading has played an important part in | | | | dynasties. Faience is a bead style still employed |
| world history. Glass seed beads were a huge | | | | today. Beadwork evolved as an embellishment for |
| commodity on the trade routes of the Old World, | | | | textile weaving. Very early on tribal weavers |
| with Arab and Portuguese traders carrying fine | | | | discovered that clothes and other cloth products |
| Indian glass beads far and wide. People in the | | | | could be livened up very easily with some form |
| beads' destinations, locations such as Zanzibar, | | | | of bead. Every culture had its own methods and |
| Tanzania, Kenya, Malaysia, Sumatra, and Vietnam, | | | | materials in regards to this process. In India and |
| treasured these rare wonders. For more than a | | | | Africa, beads have been made from things like |
| thousand years these beads were brought from | | | | ostrich shells, seeds, and bone for thousands upon |
| the sub-continent by the Arab caravans, and | | | | thousands of years. In Peru the materials were |
| during that time a handful of seed beads was a | | | | highly refined bits of shell and malachite. In Israel, |
| rare and precious thing. Such beads, the type | | | | stitched beadwork from the Stone age has been |
| you'll be using for loom beading, have been found | | | | discovered. The use of looms for beads centered |
| in the tombs of kings and queens of the Far East, | | | | in the Americas, for the most part. Tribes of the |
| in the funerary mounds of China and Korea. In | | | | Amazon used looms and beads together, as did |
| the 16th century AD European craftsmen and | | | | Native Americans of the central and eastern |
| traders began to dominate the glass seed bead | | | | United States. When European colonizers appeared |
| trade. They had to contend with a number of | | | | on the scene, the art of loom beading was slowly |
| competitors, however. By this time a great | | | | absorbed into their culture, and through them |
| number of other types of beads had come into | | | | flowed back to Europe. By the 19th century loom |
| circulation on the world market. Glass seed beads | | | | beading was a popular pastime in the growing |
| weren't the first type of beads to be developed. | | | | United States, as well as in England and the |
| Not even close. The first beads were precious | | | | Continent. Beaded cloth also appeared in Czech, |
| stones, or shells, or real seeds, or even pearls. | | | | southern Europe, and the Indonesian isle of |
| The impulse to decorate one's person is a strong | | | | Sumatra. These days, loom beading generally |
| and primal one. The history of bead-making goes | | | | does without the cloth aspect of the equation, |
| back just as far as the history of weaving, | | | | instead focusing on smaller accessories such as |
| reaching back into the fog and mists of time, | | | | necklaces, bracelets, hatbands, and small |
| 10,000 years or more. By 7000 BCE the | | | | tapestries. Today, loom beading is a fascinating |
| inhabitants of the Indus Valley were using | | | | pastime for many a "handy" soul. Some people |
| primitive tools to drill holes in stones, which they | | | | say the loom work itself is claming, almost like |
| then strung around their necks. Out in the | | | | meditation. And it produces a nice |
| Philippines and the South Pacific, islanders used | | | | byproduct--beautiful beadwork. |