Bead-it-Forward Project ~ Beading Against Breast Cancer

For the past 2 years, Jeanette Shanigan has been uniting bead artists in the fight against breast cancer. Jeanette collects beaded squares from volunteer beaders and sews them together and along with some finishing touches makes full quilts. The quilts are then auctioned off at the annual Bead & Button show in Milwaukee, WI. Since starting the project in 2007, Jeannette together with bead artists have raised close to $10,000.

Each year has been a different theme. Click HERE to see the 2007 Butterfly quilt. You can see the 2008 Roses quilt HERE. This years theme is "Hearts".

A bunch of the members of the Etsy Bead Weavers Street Team thought it would be a great idea if we could have an all EBW quilt, so we'll be sending our squares to Susan over at Clickscales Art and she will ship them all out together. Thank you Susan!

This is the first year I am participating and I am so excited to be part of something so wonderful! Here are the 2 squares I've created. The first one is done in 2-drop peyote stitch with delica seed beads. The second one was something new for me - bead embroidery. I love what I've seen others do with it, but have been a little apprehensive to try it up until now. It was actually quite fun. A lot like cross stitch, but with beads. It was fun to just bead along and see what happens.

If you're interested in donating your time and talent for a good cause, check out the ground rules page HERE for exact instructions. Completed squares are due no later than March 15th, 2009.

I've also put together a couple patterns for people to use if you don't feel like graphing out your own. Both patterns are 2-drop peyote stitch. You must use size 11 (standard) delica seed beads to get the correct measurement for the quilt. I probably don't have to say this but I'm going to anyways. Please use these patterns for the quilt project ONLY. Using these patterns to make something to sell for personal profit would be bad ju-ju.