My name is Sam Wescott and I am a beading instructor and beadweaving pattern designer from Cincinnati, Ohio. I’m in my mid-thirties and beads make up a lot of my life, comprising both my day job and my primary hobby and side hustle.
I started beading when I has 13 years old and bored out of my mind during a family vacation to the beach that involved 4 straight days of cold rain and gray skies. I bought a little friendship bracelet kit from the toy section at the local supermarket and was hooked. I moved from macrame friendship bracelets to stringing beads, and eventually on to self-taught off-loom bead weaving and eventually even some bead embroidery and kumihimo braiding.
I started working at Beads Direct USA in 2010, which was a wonderful little bead shop in Mason, OH. I started out doing basic retail and inventory stuff, but eventually began teaching classes and creating beading designs of my own. It was shortly after the SuperDuo beads came into fashion that I created my first successful original design that people seemed to really like – the SuperDuo Rosette Bracelet.
The one that started it all!
In July of 2013, the brick and mortar bead store, unfortunately, had to close its doors and go online. The owner was kind enough to keep me on and I now work for the same company which sells its own supplies online here. Now instead of customer service and floor sales, I get to work as a shipping manager and inventory organizer (I absolutely love it). You can see my day-to-day exploits at the shop on our instagram. I still get to work in the beading industry and the convenient office hours mean that I have time in the evenings and weekends to continue developing my own patterns and I spent years teaching them at various bead shops on the weekends.
My hope for this blog is that it will give the chance to share my beading adventures with the greater online bead community as well as give me a place to archive my work and consolidate my presence on various types of social media (facebook, and pinterest, and etsy, oh my!). So be sure to check out my Links page for both links to my work and recommendations for bead shopping! I am really excited to hear from everybody so be sure to make use of the comment boxes below each post and page. I would love to hear from you.
Happy Beading!
Sam Wescott
Wescott Jewelry 
Hi Sam I hope you don’t mind but I found your article on “Search for the Source” and found it very interesting. So much so I shared it on my page. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen an item on Pintrest that I would really love the pattern for but can’t find designer info or if there is a pattern available. Hopefully now, with your help, I’ll be having no trouble in the future!
Kind regards
Sandra
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Thank you for the sweet comment, Sandra! I am so glad you found my post helpful.
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Nice to read your story, Sam–and meet a fellow bead enthusiast and reader, too. WordPress doesn’t seem to have that many beading bloggers…perhaps it is because they are sensibly spending their time beading! Or perhaps I haven’t found them, yet. I blog at genusrosa (somewhat infrequently) and now at Heartwish, as well. I wasn’t sure my genusrosa readers would want me going off on my jewelry enthusiasms and etsy stuff, so created a separate blog. Your work is lovely! I still have SOOO much to learn. How fun is that? :)
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Hi Sam, my name Alberta REID, I really in joy looking at your pattern for the bracelet, I am hoping to improve in my ability to created bracelets an earrings, I am trying to teach my self to created jewelry by bead stitching, I only start making jewelry about three years ago, do you have any suggestion ?
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Hi, Alberta! I learned mostly through trying out patterns in books and tutorials online. The more you make, the more your quality will improve! I would also recommend checking out your local bead store, if you have one. The classes and resources are invaluable!
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Hi Sam,a dilemma i have come across is about stealing ones designs, 1. do you know the original designer of the stitches u do? And should they not be given credit due? 2.a slight change in color in design ,does that constitute it being their original design. happy accidents happen all the time. Just wondering…
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Hi, Jo! These things aren’t exactly codified, but the beading community usually operates with some generally accepted guidelines. First, specific patterns/designs need crediting, but general techniques don’t. Many of the stitches are ancient or hard to trace, so they generally go uncredited (there are exceptions, like Melanie de Miguel’s Hubble Stitch). And the vague rule for when a design becomes a new design and not a tweak is that 75% percent of the design has been changed, not including color/bead choice. :)
Hope that helps!
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Great blogg you have here
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