Shirley Isaacs by Sigrid Wynne-Evans     © December 2005   Shirley Isaacs has some wonderful patterns, her bracelets are very elegant. She has a style to suite everyone, for any occasion. I find her "bug" pattern and her butterflies to be exceptional. Shirley has several wonderful patterns to offer you. I felt that Shirley's bio was best left in her own words. I hope you find her as fascinating as I do!

Shirley's Familiy & Friends:
   

I was born in 1946 in Luton, Bedfordshire, in what was then a smallish village - (heading north out of London, England). My mum had lived with her family in Shoreditch in the City of London and married my dad in 1942. (My parents have now been married for 63 years!) My dad was a young French soldier who had enlisted with the Free French Forces and was based for a while in London. He met my mum at a tea-dance. (Very genteel!) When she was pregnant with me, she was evacuated to Luton as the City of London had been very badly bombed. My paternal grandparents with their children had come from Poland and settled in Paris and we still have family there. Sadly my father lost most of his close family during the war.

My parents moved back to north London and in 1953 we moved to north-west London where my younger brother was born. My education was not very exciting. I attended one of the first good Comprehensive Schools aged 11 and stayed three years. I went on to secretarial college for a year, learning shorthand, typing, book-keeping etc. and by 16 I was out at work.

I had wanted to go to art school, but my parents insisted that I would always earn a living if I had something practical behind me and in those days we did as we were told! Although in retrospect my heart wasn't totally in it, I was a pretty good secretary and worked for a variety of lovely companies. My first job was with a cosmetic company and then moved on to advertising and property - (Real Estate). I married a property guy (Mike) when I was 23 and worked until I was pregnant with our daughter,and within a few years, Mike and I had two gorgeous kids! One girl, Claire (now 32), and one boy, Paul (now 27). As the kids got a little older, I did some temping as a secretary and still keep my hand in. I've now been married for almost 36 yrs! (I was obviously cradle-snatched!!)

Sampling of Shirley's Artistic Creations:
   
      

I had been hopeless at sewing when I was at school, and couldn't even manage to put a pincushion together! I had loved embroidery and when my kids were young, started going to embroidery evening classes. This was an enjoyable few years, but eventually felt I had to move on and enrolled at a college to take my City & Guilds qualification in Patchwork and Quilting and Creative Embroidery. I did this over a period of five years and learned a huge amount. Although I loved stitching, I enjoyed doing the research just as much, probably because this included writing and lots of drawing.

Sampling of Shirley's Artistic Creations:
         

Then through a close friend, I joined a Design Class tutored by a well-known knitwear/textile designer. I go to this class now once a month for six months thru the year. We do lots of sketches, experimental ideas, drawing and painting, having chosen an object to work from - usually from the V&A Decorative Arts Museum in London.

I think my main inspiration has to be 'colour' as this is the thing I'm usually attracted to first. I'm greatly inspired by medieval art, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and influenced by Picasso. I love the Spanish architect Gaudi's work. Mike and I have visited Barcelona a couple of times and find Gaudi's buildings and design ideas very inspirational. The food is wonderful too! (Cooking is another thing I love but we wont go into that now!)

Sampling of Shirley's Artistic Creations:
            

I came into beading several years ago by chance. Mike was going off on a golf (or bridge) weekend and I thought I'd like to try something new while he was away. Browsing the Internet I found a residential beading course, making an amulet bag, at a college in the north of England. I met some lovely people, (with whom I'm still friendly), made a dreadful little amulet bag completely misshapen but I loved making it, and was hooked! Like my bead collection, my hobby has just grown and grown! I still go a couple of times a year to this weekend beading course and meet up with old friends. It's wonderful having 2-3 days just beading, eating and jawing!

I can't say I really think of myself as a dedicated beader as such, but a designer who happens to love working with beads. I love the challenge of designing and the initial making. If you name a craft I've probably tried it! I love collecting other craft ideas and have in the past also done silversmithing, pottery, papermaking, bookmaking, braid making... There are some more to add to this list, but I'm running out of house space!! I was never one to learn something new and just leave it in the classroom - I had to carry on with it at home (as my husband could tell you!).

We have a detached 4-bedroomed house in a leafy London suburb. Our children no longer live at home and there's still not enough space as we do tend to be hoarders. We used to have a 'working' table-tennis table in our loft room. This room has gradually mutated into being 'my studio' rather than a spare bedroom and the table is covered with paints, papers, brushes, pencils, and lots of other arty equipment etc. etc. - - you know the sort of thing?! I also do my stitching up there. We haven't been able to play table-tennis for a long time now! I do all my beadwork downstairs in my kitchen where I can see the garden. The other advantage is I can make cups of tea, snack, use the computer and watch tv while I'm working!

In 1999, my son was doing American Studies at Sussex University, (in the south of England), and was taking his third year in Santa Cruz, California. In the meantime I had e-mailed Cathy Thomsen of 'BeadGang' who had published some lovely beading books and I'd wanted to find out if I could buy them over here. We started 'chatting' and she had said if I was in her area when we took Paul over, to come and visit. After we'd dropped our son at Santa Cruz Uni., we hired a car and drove around the spectacular Big Sur, through some wonderful places, drove as far as Las Vegas and then returned to San Francisco through some more incredible scenery. We visited Cathy Thomsen en route saw her lovely family and wonderful beaded stuff, and then through her sister Cheryl Assemi was introduced to a cyber beading group and we're all still chatting!

One of the members of the cyber-group, at that time, persuaded me to send some of my designs to Rita at Bead-Patterns. I knew absolutely nothing about designing on the computer, (and not much about the computer!) - let alone the different formats that were needed. What on earth were JPGs, bitmaps and PDFs?!!! Well, with a great deal of patience and help from Rita I eventually managed to get one project up and running! And that was the start of designing for Bead-Patterns.

I wouldn't enjoy making quantities of the same thing to sell at craft fairs, so designing patterns is really perfect for me. I can experiment and only have to make the one piece, (although I do re-make parts of the project for photo instructions). I also tend to get addicted to a technique or a colourway and will make several variations on a theme. It's surprising how different something can look just by changing the colour or types of beads. As you may know if you've seen my beadwork, I love Ndebele/Herringbone Stitch and could probably work with just this for ever. Although I do like Peyote, Odd-Count Peyote, spirals, tubes..etc.etc.!!!

I am also into knitting and belong to a knitting group which is run by my daughter's friend. As a group, Knitchicks, we visit a cinema once a month on a Saturday morning - watch a film and knit! We then go off and have some lunch and discuss our knitty problems! (The screening is just for our group so the lights are kept up a little higher.) It's slightly surreal but great fun. I have knitted for a long time, but strangely enough also don't like making more than one of anything. Consequently I have lots of 'one glove', 'one sock' etc. hanging around waiting for the second one to be made! I think I just enjoy the challenge of learning something new and 'storing' it until it might be needed sometime in the future. Luckily knitting scarves is in at the moment - so I'm all right here!

I tend to make beaded jewellery that I can wear myself so I go for simple designs and wearable colours rather than very ornate designs. Probably my favourite styles are in ethnic beadwork - but I also love anything that sparkles! I have taught both beading and embroidery, design my own pieces textile and beaded (making stitched and knitted bags is another addiction!) I have had several articles and pieces of work published, including some How-To projects in magazines. I have sold several one-off pieces made as commissions and some beaded jewellery pieces that were displayed in a local art gallery. For relaxation I love looking around the shops and stores at the new colours and fabrics and, of course, the beaded jewellery. I take a little notebook/sketchbook around with me everywhere and even when I go to the hairdresser, I'm thumbing through the latest magazines, jotting down ideas!

Sampling of Shirley's Designs:
Click on an image to view the pattern.
       
 
   

Thanks to a workshop with David Chatt when he came to London last year my obsession at the moment is 3-D Right-Angle Weave and am playing about with this. It has lots of potential!

As for future ideas, I would love to put a beadwork book together, but am a little put off as there are so many wonderful books on the market already, but when I come up with, what I hope will be something slightly different, this may take off! I just hope that my designs inspire people to start beading.

Shirley Isaacs