SOUTACHE by Anneta Valious

Soutache, 30 gorgeous bead embroidery designs by Anneta Valious and published by Lark Books an Imprint of Sterling Publishing Co. Anneta Valious was born in Moscow. She studied psychology at the University of Moscow. Her destiny led her to France where she has lived for years with her husband and 2 children. In 2007 Anneta discovered the world of beading. For a number of months, she looked at photos of beadwork online and day dreamed. But she finally tried her hand at beading. Anneta is self taught. She learned to beadweave and do bead embroidery from books and the internet. She was already familiar with jewelry made from ornamental trims known as passementerie, having seen it exhibited in decorative art galleries in Moscow. So it wasn't long before she began incorporating Soutache into her own work. She became deeply passionate about creating her own Soutache jewelry designs and she now can't imagine life without beads. Bead embroidery with soutache allows her to create very feminine jewelry with graceful curves and to experiment with shapes and colors, even to dare to build up layers to make dimensional pieces. After launching into jewelry frabrication, she discovered the brilliance of crystals too. When she is designing pieces of jewelry she finds inspiration from pretty stones and color combinations. To begin with Anneta Valious gives us a bit of history on Soutache through time. She then makes sure you have everything you will need to make her projects by giving you lists of materials, tools, and what they are used for. Anneta takes you through the different techniques you will use. These instructions are explicitly shared and accompanied with numbered photos. Just a few of the techniques you will learn are stitching, finishing the ends of soutache, attaching soutache around a bead, making bands, and attaching soutache to a prong setting, just to mention a few. There are many more techniques available for you to learn. Now for the projects. As mentioned before there are 30 amazing projects. Each project has step by step thorough instructions accompanied by step by step photographs. Each project also has a list of items to gather. You also get a list of items needed to make the project possible such as, scissors, tape measure, needles, pencils, etc. These projects are stunning, elegant, and breath taking. Anneta makes it all possible for us with her easy to follow instructions. At the end of all the projects you will be treated with a gallery of gorgeous soutache jewelry. My overall opinion of this book is that it is a beautiful book very well planned out and written. The jewelry is stunning. I think this is a must have for all you Jewelry Artisans. If you pride yourself in giving all avenues of jewelry designing a try, then you will be as excited about Soutache as I am. This is a fun book with enough projects to keep you busy for a long time. Anneta's brilliance shines. She is just amazing. So I hope you want miss out on this publication. If you are interested in Soutache and want more information please contact Nicole McConville at: nicole@sterlingpublishing.com or Lark Jewelry and Beading at: www.larkcrafts.com