T-Designs Beadwork

Hello- Maruawe,   from  Tessa Doyebi Robledo, I am from the Southern tribes of Oklahoma Numunu  (Comanche, The People) and Ka-i-gwu (Kiowa the principal people). A descendant of Chief Wild horse of the Comanche tribe and Chief Donepi of the Kiowa tribe.

  I currently reside in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.I have been perfecting my bead work for forty years, from the young age of eight years old. I am a fourth-generation bead work artist on my mother’s paternal side of the Kiowa tribe. My great-grandmother Ruby Doyebi, her son Ernest Doyebi and my mother Ernestine Doyebi and myself, are known for Kiowa contemporary style dance regalia. Our family style of bead work has very designs with several colors mainly in traditional Kiowa hand stitching. 

  My inspiration to learn to bead at a very young age started while watching my great grandmother bead and teach my mother along with her father to make traditional dance regalia. My mother also taught beading to our tribal youth every summer in Wichita, Kansas where I was raised. This is where I was able to practice what I had learned from my great-grandmother and pursue a lifelong passion for my own interpretation of contemporary style of bead work.

  Over the years beading for family and friends I have mastered my own style and designs to showcase my two individual tribes. When I first started to bead, I would use seed beads mostly size 11-13 cut, with several colors on a loom, lazy stitch or peyote stitch. I have incorporated several different styles of flat stitch, using two needles over the years.

  The two-needle style requires one needle with thread to lay down the beads and the second needle will tack down the first needle & thread, two to three beads apart. My style of bead work is more contemporary since, I prefer to include several bead types from cut glass, tricut charlotte, antique or vintage cut glass beads & swarovski cut crystals to my work.