Beadworkers Guild Challenge 2026 - A night at the Opera - part 3 - the finished project

For those of you landing on this page from elsewhere but part 2 (preceeded by part 1), maybe read these 2 articles first, unless the making of something is not of interest to you. 

I have to say that, when I started this project, or rather when I bought the round bag with the idea to cover it with beads, I had absolutely no idea what I was about to inflict upon myself. Bead embroidery may be very freeing and limitless in essence, but the amount of work it takes to cover it was beyond my notion. Now I know better. Last year's mask was a small project compared to this. 

I don't think that I will ever make something similar again. But I don't regret it. Not even the shoulder issue - that would have happened sooner or later with another project anyhow. I learned a lot, and things that I learn on my own ('the hard way') make me grow. 

I'm proud that I succeeded to make what I envisioned... so in the end, perhaps it is sometimes better to not know what we are getting ourselves into.

Now the only thing left to do is going to the Opera with my

"Lady of the Camellias" 

jewelbag & accessories:

The sweets

My sweets may look simple, but quite a bit of effort
 went into them. I used Tubular Peyote stitch,
Herringbone stitch, RAW and MRAW.

The opera glasses

After several design explorations, I opted for a very sober white
and red flower design. Something not ordinary, but also not
too busy. Just a reminder of who these glasses belong to...

The jewelry

The very dainty chain is made with some sort of
2-bead netting (like Russian spiral) with
Swarovski "Crystal Linen" teardrops
matching Marguerite's pale gown.

Back of the pendant

The finished bag

and more details.

I have to say that I love my cabochon bezel and the 
nestling of the pearls in the bugle "beadscape"
and the way the micro crystals sparkle.

This video shows how much the bag

sparkles when moved.

This is how I imagined it displayed at the Guild's annual meeting:

I hear you ask: 

why couldn't I send it to the Guild for the challenge? 

Because a bag that measures 14x14x18cm fits in the box, but when one adds fabric, beadwork and padding, it doesn't anymore. The rules are clear - the box should not exceed 16cm on one side.

In my head all the lights were green, and for some strange reason,
I didn't double check. I made this project as if in a dream where everything was ok.

And that's life. 

I don't regret a thing, because I am delighted with my beautiful bag.

My favorite side is the red and black side. 

Which side do you prefer?

Let me know in the comments. 

Cath ❤

Beadworkers Guild Challenge 2026 - A night at the opera - part 2 - planning and playing

For those of you landing on this page from elsewhere but part one, I recommend reading that first. Also, if you're in a hurry, come back when you have a bit of spare time, to enjoy the read with a cup of something that you fancy, because this is not a 5-second read.

As explained, I already had a bag. A round ball like this:

Now to make something beautiful inspired by The Lady of the Camellias.

My goal for this bag was to tell Marguerite's circle of life, from innocence, opulence, and illness to death, and my motto was "the more, the merrier". More bling, more texture and more gold, to cover this round bag with luscious bead-embroidery.

Before doing anything else, I wanted to see what could be achieved with Tyvek though. Guild member and beader extraordinaire Sarah Cryer, who is much more into bead embroidery than me, introduced us to this novelty material to create texture in her work. 

Preliminary tests with Tyvek

I treated myself to a heat gun and Tyvek to create these interesting "moonscapes" with it. I watched videos on YouTube to learn more about the process. First I tried without paint. Then I used acrylic and gold paint to color it the same colours as the bag. Once dry, I cut out pieces to heat. 

I painted the Tyvek with Marguerite's life in mind

I found it to be best to avoid sharp angles
and use small to medium size pieces

Tyvek shrinks when heated. You must be careful not to burn yourself, but also not to burn the Tyvek, because it melts. I had lots of fun playing with this material. It  is rather flexible, but tends to lie flat, which wasn't so great on a round ball, but it worked. Also, depending on where, one has to poke it hard to have the needle pass through it, for when heated, it becomes harder, like plastic. I think that it's really nice though.

Part of these pieces of Tyvek found a place
on the bag. 

The novel states that Marguerite always had a bouquet of camellia flowers with her, and they carried a message: white camellias meant that she was available for lovers, red camelias meant she wasn't.

You need more than 'enough' flowers,
for they are not always well shaped

I chose to use cream and red camellia flowers on the bag, which would represent Marguerite's short life, and added one white camellia for her birth, and one black for her death (she died from tuberculosis at only 23). Also...

... I colored one camellia and 2 leaves a tea rose color, 
representing the brief moments of true bliss.

For the foundation, I purchased "laminated" jacquard fabric. The fabric had lots of variations in texture, which I intended to put to use to place my beads and colors. This fabric appeared to fray a lot. 

It's been quite an adventure to cut and assemble the parts, which I chose to call my "orange peels", and I made them rather large compared to the size of the ball. Using the fabric to have more texture makes the fabric shrink, adding beads and other things like the flowers too.

I made my own chablon to cut the fabric

The gold fabric was a bit too champagne rosé

But that ended up being a blessing in disguise.
I colored certain portions of the fabric

For my beads, I mainly used durable, good quality materials: freshwater pearls, 24kt and 14kt Plated seed beads, Swarovski crystal beads, pearls and elements and rhinestones. Lots of micro crystals too. And of course sequins. This bag is meant to shine at the opera!

The fresh pale colours and the layout on the champagne side of the bag represent Marguerite's birth and the effervescence of her demi-mondaine life-style. The dark, yet sparkly side of the bag depicts her loneliness, illness and finally her death. Back in her days, her sacrifice, her life falling apart and suffering, were seen as the ‘earning of her wings’, reason why there is a black feather on the side of the black flower.

First orange "peel" in the make

I started with the dark side of the bag. Only one 'range peel'. After finishing the first, it became obvious that it would have been better to embroider all 3 orange peels already attached to one another. So the second portion was made of 2 (and the other side of the bag of 3). 

Planning where to put things is one thing,
changing and rearranging them
a hundred times, is
the next thing

At this stage my arm was hurting a real lot. I thought that I'd never finish this bag. Then I discovered how putting a small cushion under my hand and arm while sleeping was life changing. 

When covering the bag on the first side, I decided to add padding under the fabric, for a better fit. I then had to add more fabric to one side. Fortunately it worked well.

the moment of truth

For those wondering, yes I used glue. To apply it in the slit between the bag's frame and the ball, I used a syringe and a dentist tool to push the fabric neatly in place, very slowly. It worked! Which was a big relief. 

Now if the dark side of the bag looks as if beads are dripping from top to bottom (especially in the black portion), and the cup chain looks "broken", the bright side has a symmetric layout with a continuous swirly silk wave and continuous cup chain.

To plan the layout, I pinned the silk elements in place.

The pale side of the bag took much less time to make than the dark side, thanks to lessons learned. One of these lessons was to add fragile elements the latest. 

On the champagne side, I added lots of little flower-shaped sequins to surround the Tyvek. I had those adorable sequins only in white and wanted them in reds / coral and gold too, so I dyed them. 

I also dyed my thread. 

Shibori silk must be the most fragile fabric ever. To protect it, - as well as the flowers and the leaves -, I planned where to place these elements, and then embroidered the entire surface without them. The photos here show the empty spaces for the leaves and the flowers. If you look at the beadwork closely, you will see the different names of the lady of the Camellias written with beads.

Marie

Marguerite

Camille

Violetta

While waiting for materials like (more) silk flowers and real Shibori silk, which was surprisingly hard to find in ivory (the one I bought from Perles & Co. was not real Shibory silk at all), I made the other items for in the bag: sweets and opera glasses.

Last but not least, the inspiration for the sweets:

Napoleons

Berlingots of Carpentras

To find which sweets Marguerite might have carried in her bag I had to put some Sherlock glasses on. I opted for two sorts: the "Napoleon" - which are round candy balls from the Netherlands, and the "Berlingots of Carpentras", which are attested to be the oldest French sweets (and still made today). 

You will discover the finished project in part 3. 

Beadworkers Guild Challenge 2026 - A Night at the Opera - part 1 - inspiration

As some of you might have understood, I didn't send my beadwork to the Guild for the Challenge this year... Not that it wasn't good enough. I think it was. At least I competed hard against myself, and paid it with big issues in my shoulder. I couldn't send it because I didn't do the right thing. And it's entirely my own fault. I will come back to that later.

I cannot bead for the time being, but I can write a bit, and will certainly not deprive you of the creational process. Here, on this blog, I like to blether about my makes. It's my joy to create and write about it when I cannot talk about it. Which is always the case for the challenge piece. It has to remain a secret. 

There is a lot to tell, so I will split this post in 3 parts. The inspiration, the planning & playing and the reveal. 

Let's start with the muse.

We surely can all agree that this year's challenge theme is absolutely perfect... but my muse remained stubbornly silent... 

Sarouchka's necklace

Of course the lovely necklace worn by Julia Roberts in the film Pretty Woman, the night she goes to the opera to see La Traviata, came immediately to mind. But some of you may know that it has already been done by Sarouchka Lobbens in 2013 for the FMG contest (and probably by others) and, if that wasn't enough a reason to avoid making another one, it also would not have been elaborate enough for the "Previous winners" category I'm in.  

So during several months simply NOTHING happened. No bells ringing. I thought that my muse was giving me a break. In fact, it was. Perhaps I should have understood this. 

The challenge remained at the back of my head. Ideas popped up from time to time... 

I hesitated to bead the opera house of Sydney, which I studied from every angle. After all, I'm into geometric beading and love a challenge, which this is all about. But to me, it didn't represent "a NIGHT at the opera". It's a fabulous architecture though.

Of course, I also thought about the Phantom of the Opera. But beading a mask was out of the question. I beaded a Venitian mask for last year's challenge. My motivation asked for something different, and it had to be exciting enough to fuel the hard work. 

I briefly wondered if I should make bling jewelry. To me, jewelry couldn't really reflect the theme entirely either, so I left things linger. Sometimes it is best to just wait and see if something happens.

Slowly, an idea started to take shape from little signs from the universe. Things that repeatedly popped up on the Internet, TV, etc, things related to La Traviata.

I discovered, notably, that Giuseppe Verdi based his world-famous opera, La Traviata, on a play, the Lady of the Camellias, a novel written (and staged) by Alexandre Dumas fils. I vaguely remembered a very sick woman in a black dress, nothing very exciting. So I took some time to find out more. It was an interesting rediscovery. 

Did you know that the film
"Moulin Rouge" is another
adaptation of this story? 

The novel is a French classic based on Alexandre Dumas fils' real life love story with a courtesan called Marie Duplessis. Dumas renamed her Marguerite, (and in certain English translations, her name is Camille). She was as famous as a courtesan could be. Papparazzi-famous. The most desired woman of her time. However, the very reason I chose her for my inspiration was a precise mention in the text about her life style. She [..] "attended all the opening nights and spent every evening at the theater or at a ball. Whenever a new play was performed, she was sure to be there, with three things that never left her side and that always occupied the front of her ground-floor box: her opera glasses, a bag of sweets, and a bouquet of camellias." [...]

The Lady of the Camellias

I love camellias, I love La Traviata, and I love sweets. Marguerite had her lodge at the opera. What better subject could I possibly hope for? The muse got very enthusiastic about it and decided to  remind me of a bag that I had bought to cover with beads, some day... suggesting me to make something very sophisticated for a beautiful woman, to carry her opera glasses, and sweets. 

It takes time to hunt for materials for a project of this sort and a good amount of brain storming and shopping, and of course raiding my stash. And while waiting for all my beads, crystals and elements to arrive, I immersed myself in planning and playing. Which is the subject of my next post about this project. 

Venecia en Río de Orleáns - or how to bead together when living afar - our BWG group challenge project

If last year I beaded and patterned a real lot for our SIZB Group challenge (Bead a Song - English Country Garden) but didn't write as much as I would have wanted, this year I did a lot of coordinating and drawing, less patterning, but there is a loooot that I can tell about it, which is what this blog is all about! Beading trials and tribulations.

This is what our group made for this year's challenge: a float with a tractor, with people dressed in traditional New Orleans Mardi Gras colors, with Venetian bridge-inspired railings and lamp posts, including the amazing pattern of the cobblestone pathway of Ipanema Beach in Rio the Janeiro. 

In this post you will discover how, as a Zoom group, we created our Venecia en Río de Orleáns float.

Our Venecia en Río de Orleáns float

Inspiration & study

When the theme "Mardi Gras" was announced we all agreed to make a float, but what we'd put on the float was unclear. Sylvia asked us for ideas and possibly patterns without particular guidance, to see what we would come up with. My muse went in overdrive mode once the theme and float idea sunk in. I knew that I would not be able to bead a lot myself, because of numerous commitments (and a Carnival mask in the make for my own BWG challenge entry), but... I was completely besotted with what the muse threw at me and couldn't stop drawing. I first investigated quite a bit about the regulations, notably maximum size in length, height and width, safety requirements one has to respect, such as railings for the people on the float, and fire extinguishers, etc. We really wanted it to correspond to a real-life float.

I made plans for a double float with a tractor and a bridge inspired by the Rialto bridge in Venice. Yes a double float - more about that later. Everything is at a 1/24 scale, except the bridge of course, which is a Carnival decor that offers the perfect railing.

I made an inspiration board, and the photos below were part of it:

The Rialto Bridge in Venice

Street lamps at Piazza San Marco

Mooring plots in Venice

Mardi Gras costumes

Color of the water in sun light or shade
photo by Helen McIntyer who went
to Venice and found inspiration for
the water.

A tractor with just the right green and yellow
but we preferred purple for our tractor.

Ipanema cobblestones

 

Designing (and beading)

This is more or less what the project looked like when I finished the sketches (and curtain patterns made).

View from the left and the inside. Of course many more details
and more paper work was done.

Fortunately for my crazy muse, our group is blessed to count amazing beaders and designers who all were willing to do this project together and who did an awesome job. We met through Zoom every 2 weeks to talk about our progress and various details and needs, and it was great fun!

Béné Damnet, together with her husband Jean-Luc, created an absolutely fantastic truck with a big hook that the builders would be able to trim to size when connecting the floats. They made a base that Béné would cover with beads with as many techniques as she could think of (Brickstitch, Peyote stitch, "Huichol" bead mosaic, Herringbone stitch... and Jean-Luc added special features: real lights, even a flash light on the roof! The battery is hidden inside the truck and can be accessed behind the number plate added by Sylvia, who also beaded to cover the truck. Isn't it stunning?! 

For the stairs of the bridge, just plain stairs could have been made, but Jess Hayman's muse fell for the cobble stone patterns that can be found in Rio de Janeiro, specifically the ones near Ipanema beach. I cannot express how stunned I was when she showed her first CRAW step with the successful motif AND the perfect size...I am still stunned how this motif repeats itself so beautifully. It's just incredible.

from step

 

to stairs

Jess also designed and beaded the remarkable two-drop Peyote stitch stone work under the bridge. I designed the CRAW arches. Our beaders, Shawn Brown, Gillian Watson, Vee Pretorius, Angela Bramwell, Jess and Sylvia all did a sterling job.

to bridge

 

I don't know if you can imagine the feeling you can get from seeing a product that really corresponds to what was only an mental image, but I was incredibly happy to see how well the bridge turned out!

Violetta (Vee) Pretorius designed and Square-stitched the small yet indispensable fire extinguishers for under the bridge. Aren't these the cutest little miniatures? 

Liz Thornton designed and beaded the wheels for the trailers (sorry no photo, but they are rather small and discreet).

Jenny Wilson designed and beaded the lamp posts which I absolute love. Jenny was part of the building team who created the hardware (float) and put everything together.

I designed and beaded the caps for the tall mooring poles in the water near the bridge with diagonal Cellini Peyote, and Ann Musty made the white and red poles in tubular Peyote.

Meanwhile, Marion Dearlove and Nancy Jenner each designed and wrote two patterns for male and female figures for our beaders to make and dress up as desired. Here, our beaders could shine with their own ideas. Stringing, Brick stitch, Peyote stitch, Netting, Fringing, Picot stitch, RAW, Herringbone, and Saint Petersburg stich, and probably also a bit of Square stitch!

Marion made a tribe of many colors dressed in the traditional 
green, purple and gold colors seen in New Orleans

 

Girls and Boys by Nancy Jenner

 

Diane Young's boys

 

Ann Rust's Dancers

 

Vee made two jesters showing
her amazing geometric skills

 
I don't have photos of all the little persons, but in the photo of the materials that you will find near the end of this article you can probably spot other dolls made by Christine Jones or another building team member. Below is my girl, based on Nancy Jenner's model, and Marion's pattern for her little hands.

 

I beaded a second tiny mask for a potential partner... which I could not bead myself because of tendonitis in my shoulder. I was inspired by a gown that I saw on Amazon for Carnival.

In the images here you can see some of the Brick stitch diamonds that I designed to decorate the bridge arches, to show that with 4 colors, the possibilities are endless.

Some were beaded by Kay Brown, Sharron Smith and Christine Jones, but Marion Dearlove also designed her own diamonds.

Now the curtains. Why curtains? Well, curtains hanging from bridges seems to be quite a thing in Venice. They're the equivalent of large advertisement panels on the side of our roads. Because the bridge was to be cut in two pieces - one piece per "half" trailer", these two curtains would finish them beautifully. The pattern is based on a Brick stitch pattern by Béné, which I transposed to Herringbone stitch. They are there like an affirmation of the colorway we chose.

These two curtains were exquisitely beaded by Denise Bending and Teresa Sagaser.

And so our mighty building team, composed of Jenny Wilson, Jenny Argyle, Helen McIntyre, Jess and Sylvia, inherited a considerable pile of beaded items to put together in a very small space.

Putting it all together

It's been an herculean task for our building team. A lot of work and very little sleep is what they had during the week-end they could meet to work on it.

Tough job: in this image you can see all the elements beaded by the participants

 

Helen had already worked on a beautiful 3-drop stitch design to mimic the ripples on water in the canal, and pushed the details farther by making the water in the shade of the bridge darker than that in the sunlight. I think that it is truly magnificent. She also made the pavement of the streets near the bridge, after trying various combinations of Tila beads. It is beautiful too, and I think that it was made with Square stitch. 

Helen's water sample

Now if the pavement had to be seriously reduced, she had to bead a lot more to cover the portion in between the two half bridges that had to be together on one trailer.

 

 So what happened for the float to become a single one instead of a double...

 Well if yours truly' s muse is great at throwing ideas at her, it appears to be less clever when it comes to measurements. I thought that the available space was 60cm x 60cm and knew that the double float could only fit in the required limits if placed in the diagonal, but apparently, the maximum space available was 45cmx60cm and it didn't fit. Sadly, only one trailer meant removing a huge amount of space before and behind the bridge and I have to say that I cried inside (and I still cry, but it would simply have been too risky to try to push the walls and be disqualified).

It looks as if it would still work on 45x60 but alas...
I was soooo disappointed

 

These are the pitfalls of working apart together and last-minute solutions to be found.

Unsurprisingly, we didn't win our category this year... The judges were immensely impressed by it and had a hard time choosing. They wrote a truly lovely appreciation, with plenty of compliments, but one thing I don't understand is that they said that "it was hard to find areas for improvement[...] it would have been amazing if the tractor could have been able to move the float! Incorporating even more stitches would have elevated the piece even further". Well... I have manners and won't say what I really think about that last remark...

Yummy snacks - I could
use some...

For me, a bridge cut in half for no obvious reason simply doesn't make sense and, despite the yummy fuel available, the team could not bead another xx hours to make a central piece... Helen already had to complete the portion of water that was missing, and the street lamps had to be finished too. And the other projects entered in the challenge were all of amazing quality.

 

But you know what?

The members voted for us as best Group project, which is wonderful, for there were 7 very good group submissions, and they are beaders with skilled eyes. Yay!

Another nice thing is that I can show all the photos that I want to, without cutting the grass under the Guild's feet who like to have a bit of exclusivity when publishing interviews of the winners with photos of the works in the July journal, so it might sound odd, but it is nearly nice to not win: we can brag about our beadwork!

My thanks to all of our designers and beaders who beaded their fingers off and to the husbands of the ladies who helped with hardware... Geoff Wilson and Jean-Luc Damnet.

Thank you for reading this far! Please leave a comment to tell what you prefer on our float!

 

 

Correction 25.01.2026: the display could apparently have been 60x60cm. This is a screenshot from the Guild's journal of January 2026 for this year's requirements, and they're the same as last year's:

 

I'm not happy.