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Expanded Vermont Beads And Fibers Adds Reason To Visit Downtown Middlebury

Tuesday May 30, 2006

By Ed Barna

    The ancient crafts of beading and knitting have taken on new life thanks to modern technology, and a new generation is learning about the new materials and techniques at Vermont Beads & Fibers.

Begun by nationally known beading teacher Bethany Barry two years ago in the Frog Hollow area's Star Mill, the store has gained a clientele who come from all around Vermont and from several nearby states. A better mousetrap may not be that much of an attraction, in a country with more cats than dogs, but lampwork and dichroic and Miracle beads (and many more), or Ironstone, Crystal Palace and Himalaya yarns (and many more), will bring experienced crafters (and many more) from great distances.

That's why the store celebrated Earth Day, April 22, by reopening at 34 Main Street. Barry said, “The business had done so well that I needed more room.”

That's not just for inventory. Many times during the day, and especially when groups of young friends meet there, the work table's chairs fill as the visitors sit down to try things out or learn from someone else.

The guys who used to sit around the general store's woodstove and talk politics over checkers, leaving their wives at home, could today drop them off Wednesday evenings for one of Addison County's great democratic institutions: a session known officially as “Stitch, Bitch and Bead.” Said Barry, “You can do one, or all three.”

The store's website, www.beadsandfibers.com, puts it this way: “Bring your current bead or knitting project and get creative suggestions,feedback and support from (the group leader), with her years of knitting and design experience. This is a great way to get past that stuck place in your knitting, or beading--whether it's boredom, confusion, or lack of time or discipline!--start something new, connect with other like-minded women and relax.”

Barry said one of the Main Street location's attractions was a better meeting space, which could be used not only for the gatherings mentioned above, but for the classes held from time to time.

Barry brings three decades of teaching experience to the workshops. There are times when she has to leave the shop in the hands of her assistants, because she's off to some other state where a big beading convention has included her as a guest instructor.

Among the books and magazines available, which amount to an ongoing how-to manual, one is likely to find Barry's own book “Bead Crochet.”

If you think about it, even the simplest bead necklace makes considerable demands on whatever is used to string them. And if you have put together, say, a loop of semiprecious stones spaced by individually wrought silver beads, you don't want it to come loose and send its component parts flying, bouncing and rolling.

So the store carries things like Nymo, C-Lon, Beadalon, hemp, Mastex, Gudebrod silk, Faux leather, satin cord, Stretch Magic, bonded polyester, Artistic Wire, and that perennial Vermont Beads & Fibers favorite, “others.” “I'm constantly on the lookout for new and intriguing beads to play with,” Barry said, by cell phone, while headed for another out-of-state engagement.

From the stuff used to string beads, it wasn't that big a stretch to carry the stuff used to knit things. All sorts of things, she said: bags, coasters, sweaters, cell phone covers, diapers, and (need we say it?) others.

So the colorful array of materials on hand includes Berroco, Skacel, Dale,Trendsetter, Great Adirondack, Anny Blatt, Plymouth, Cherry Tree Hill, Cascade, Vermont Yarn, Ellyn Cooper and BamBoo, in addition to the three already named. Even those who have no interest in handicrafts should drop in during periods like the recent prolonged rainy spell (wettest May on record), because the place blazes with color like a good year's autumn leaves.

While we're doing inventory, some of the other bead alternatives are:     Miyuki seed beads (“in 11/0,8/0, 6/0 and 3/0, as well as triangles, cubes and magatamas in many colors”), Miracle beads,  Swarowski crystals, Czech and German and Japanese and Indian glass, furnace glass by David Christenson,  Balinese silver, wood and bone and glass for hemp jewelry-making, gold vermeil beads, semi-precious stones, freshwater pearls, Peruvian ceramic beads, copper beads, Charms, and Czech glass buttons. Plus “anything else unusual I can find,” Barry says.

To see for yourself, stop by Monday--Saturday 10-5:30 (except Wednesdays until 8:30) or Sunday from noon-5. The store phone number is 388-6661, and Barry's email address is [email protected].         

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