Next show : St Mary of the Lakes Christmas Bazaar / Sat Dec 7, 2024 / 9am to 3pm / 196 Rt 70, Medford, NJ

Paul McAllister weaving a seed bead tapestry on his loom.

The artist Paul McAllister

Paul is at work weaving an original design seed-bead tapestry on his hand-made loom.

View all tapestries

Custom Tapestries and Bookmarks

Any Bookmark can be customized

Three types of customizations are popular :

1. Add initials to any bookmark

2. Change the color scheme of any bookmark

3. Design a custom bookmark

Any photo or other image can become a Tapestry

You supply the image - we will create a tapestry.

How does it work ?

Click the "Contact Us" menu at the top of this page.

Send an email with your request. We will respond with a proposal and a price. You are not committed until you have accepted the proposal. The proposal will include a picture of the design that will be used to weave the bookmark or tapestry.

Work in Progress

Cherry Tree - June 23, 2022

This tapestry originated as a cross-stitch pattern. The tapestry has 100 beads per row and the finished piece will have 170 rows. There are 42 different colors of beads being used. The picture shows 130 rows complete.

Euonymus - July 4, 2022

Taken from a picture of a flower in my garden, this tapestry has 180 beads in each row. The finished piece will have 158 rows using 52 different colors of beads. The picture shows 138 rows completed.

Spreadsheet with Tapestry Design

All of the tapestry designs are created as spreadsheets. The palette of colors is shown in column D. Each cell of the design has a code for the color and the cell is filled with the color. Next to the palette column is the count of how many beads of each color are in the design.

Spreadsheet Closeup

The color palette is in column D. The bead counts in column E. Column B shows this design has 185 rows with 201 beads in each row. Total beads in the design is 37185 and 40 different colors are used.

The Weaving Workspace

The foreground shows the loom, prepared with warp threads. The trays hold the colors required for the tapestry being woven. The tablet shows the order in which the beads need to be added to a row.

The tapestry weaving has begun

Watch a video on bead weaving

Three hand-made looms.

Paul makes his own looms for weaving tapestries and bookmarks. Different size looms are needed to allow for different size tapestries.