I have made a video tutorial of my beaded bead.
You can still buy the pdf in my Etsy shop. 😉 It is a very detailed 16 page pdf tutorial. It has illustrations and photos explaining each step for making beaded beads in 5 different sizes, 2 for using 15° and 3 for using 11°.
Although I really tried to make the video detailed as well, it is almost 32 minutes long.
So please go watch it and subscribe to my channel. ♥
I have updated my twisted herringbone tutorial both on YouTube and Etsy.
What follows is a tale of wasted time.
The pattern is 22-around. 1 repeat of the pattern is 176 beads.
It took me 5 minutes 30 seconds to string 1 repeat when I counted the beads after each row of 22 beads.
I strung 40 repeats.
5.3 x 40 = 212 = 3 hours and 53 minutes of stringing.
1 strung repeat of the pattern measures 26 cm.
26 x 40 = 1040 = 10 meters and 40 centimeters of beads.
I crocheted 37 repeats.
1 crocheted repeat of the pattern took about 23 minutes to complete assuming no mistakes or stopping to scoot the beads down the thread.
23 x 37 = 851 = 14 hours and 18 minutes.
The finished rope is 53 cm long. It has 6512 beads and 100 m of thread.
Of course it took a lot longer than 14 hours to complete because mistakes were made but the biggest time sink was scooting the beads down.
It was a huge mistake to string all the beads at once. Pushing back 10 meters of beads is a lot of work. The thread will twist and you end up spending 10 minutes to untangle the thread before you can scoot the next section of beads down. Not fun.
Mistake number 2 was using black thread. It made it hard to see and separate the stitches. Luckily I have my daylight lamp that helped me see in the beginning of the rope.
Mistake number 3 was using a size 0.75mm crochet hook. The first 2 repeats of the rope were a real struggle before I realized that I needed to switch to a bigger hook. That part became very stiff as a result but since it was only at the beginning of the rope I decided to leave it and continue crocheting with a bigger hook. The rest of the rope is firm but flexible.
And now for the biggest mistake of them all. The whole rope is a mistake!
I don’t know why I didn’t notice this but I guess I didn’t have a clear memory of what the rope was supposed to look like.
After I added the snap button closure (that didn’t work out by the way) I for some reason went back and looked at Birgitte’s necklace and that’s when I noticed that my rope didn’t look like that.
I actually liked my rope until I noticed that it was all wrong. It turned into a “new” pattern and it’s not ugly, it’s just a bit busy. But now all I see is a mistake so I will undo it and start over.
Michael thinks I’m crazy but I made this necklace for myself and I’m not going to walk around with a mistake around my neck.
I had started my rope with a few rounds of crochet without beads so I figured the mistake was in the number of stitches. I strung 1 repeat of the pattern to figure out what I had done wrong, this time starting directly with the beads. So I chained 22 beads and joined the last bead to the first with a slip stitch. That’s not how you do it. The pattern did not line up correctly.
So I tried again, this time joining the last and first bead with bead 23. And that’s how you do it apparently because this time the pattern lined up.
So I guess I had 1 too many stitches in my starting round.
I’m so disappointed in myself. I had a feeling that something was off while I was working but I didn’t stop to figure out what it was. Everything did line up “correctly” so it seemed. Aargh! What a waste of time!
I’ll be happy once it has been destroyed and I can start over again.
The pattern is by Birgitte Iländer and, when done correctly, is called Folk. I will write a proper post about this when I have made the correct necklace.
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Today I put my first beading tutorial up for sale on Etsy!
It was what I went looking for myself a year ago when I wanted to learn how to make a small beaded bead that was beaded in one piece. I couldn’t find one so I had to teach myself how to make one. And now I can teach you.
The tutorial is available here in my Etsy shop.
I took photographs of all the steps and then I also made illustrations. It took some time to first learn how to make the illustrations and then actually making them but I had a lot of fun doing it.
The tutorial is 12 pages and has 34 photos and illustrations.
So if you like, you can now make your own beaded bead earrings. All you need is a basic knowledge of peyote stitch and a small amount of seed beads.
Thanks for stopping by! ♥
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I decided to skip the next weave in the book, the european 4-in-1. Although it is a nice looking weave I don’t see any jewelry project I’d like to use it for. For this kind of wide weave I much prefer the dragon scale weave which will probably be the last weave I will learn.
So instead of the 4-in-1 I picked the barrel weave. I got a kit and instructions from UnkamenSupplies on Etsy.
At first I had real problems figuring this one out and I found the instructions to be a bit unclear. It would have helped a lot if in the pictures the newly added ring would have been of a different color. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at and I thought, who is the sadist who came up with this weave?!
But after I figured out I had to add in the new rings from the back, it all made sense and I finished this lovely pair of earrings in rose gold.
I ended up liking this weave so much I looked through my stash to find some small jump rings I could use to make another pair of earrings. I did find some dark copper jump rings but the weave turned out a bit loose so I decided to add in another jump ring “through the eye” for a total of 2 instead of 1. I guess the aspect ratio wasn’t ideal and I don’t know if this could technically still be called a barrel weave, but I like the result and I’m happy with the earrings.
♥
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Next in line for this challenge is the Spiral Weave.
I skipped right to the double spiral and made these earrings. They turned out to be a little heavy, there are 18 brass rings in each earring plus a little glass drop, so since these pictures were taken I have removed the ear wires and plan to replace them with a different kind of ear wire that balances better. The earrings aren’t that heavy you can’t wear them, they just tend to tilt forward.
I think this is a pretty and fairly simple weave.
The Jens Pind Linkage is another 4-in-1 weave in the spiral weave family.
I bought this kit from UnkamenSupplies and made a nice chunky bracelet. Unlike the earrings this is super lightweight since the jump rings are made out of aluminum. The kit came with a starter tail but I it confused me more than it helped so I started fresh. This weave is a little more difficult but once you get started it makes sense and it seemed like it was impossible to get it wrong.
I think this weave is really pretty.
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The first weave to master in my chain maille challenge is the Byzantine weave. And I believe I have done just that. It is really very easy to weave and yet the result is so beautiful. I have only made earrings with this weave so far but I would like to make a bracelet using the byzantine rose weave.
The problems I encountered had nothing to do with the weave itself. I just don’t have the hang of how much force I must use to open and close the jump rings. Sometimes the weave just goes flying across the table when one of my pliers (almost always the one in my left hand) slip off one side of the ring, usually leaving a nasty scratch on the finish of the ring.
With the thicker gauge rings it proved really hard to get a nice and seamless closure without marring the rings since it takes a bit of strength to open and close those rings.
But unless you go in for a closer look you can’t tell there’s a tiny nick on a few of the rings. The open space between the rings bother me more and is easier to spot from further away.
Hopefully these problems will go away with practice.
The Rainbow Spiral Hoops earrings aren’t made with the byzantine weave but I couldn’t resist buying the kits for them. The weave in this is just like a mobius flower, like the little rose on the ends of the byzantine earrings.
The instructions and materials for all of these earrings can be purchased from UnkamenSupplies. Or you can buy the finished earrings from me. 🙂
Next up is the Spiral and Jens Pind Weave.
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A year has passed since I started this blog and the 12 month challenge of completing every project in a beading book. My choice of book and challenge was
Little Bead Boxes by Julia S. Pretl. I enjoyed the challenge and I love the pretty boxes that came out if it.
Now it is time for another challenge.
This time I have decided not to pick one specific book but a specific jewelry technique that I don’t already know. The Little Bead Boxes are all made with peyote stitch which I had already mastered prior to beginning the challenge. So this time the challenge will be of technique rather than time.
This years challenge will be Chain Maille.
I really love the beautiful jewelry that this technique produce and I really look forward to learn all the different weaves.
I have made a list of weaves that I want to learn and with help of this book; Chain Maille Jewelry Workshop – Techniques and Projects for Weaving with Wire by Karen Karon, I have found the order in which to learn them.
My main source of inspiration comes from Unkamen Supplies. I love, love, love the designs that they come up with so I have placed an order of a few kits for earrings made with the Byzantine weave, my first weave to master.
I have also purchased a set of pliers from Unkamen Supplies that came with a sample of jump rings and wire. I was so eager to start that I made a pair of earrings with the random color jump rings I got for free. There wasn’t enough of any one color so I had to make a mix of yellow, green and pink. They look a bit clowny but I had fun making them. 🙂
The design is this one.
The challenge will begin as soon as my order arrives, probably sometime next month. Hopefully it won’t get stuck in customs which will force me to pay 20€ for them to release the package to me, as was the case with the pliers.
See you soon! ♥
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Box #12 is called “Shinjin”. This is the last of the square boxes and the final box of the book. It was a pleasant box to bead due to its tiered structure. No problems to speak of except perhaps for one broken needle.
The colors I chose are completely different from the ones listed in the book but I really like the dark reds I used for my version. I also added 15/0 seed beads to the edges of the roofs and lid even though it is not specified in the book, if you look closely at the photo in the book you can see that this is what Julia did so I decided to do the same. It gives the box a more polished look.
I’m happy with the box and I am also happy to be done with this challenge. It has been mostly fun and I very much look forward to Julia’s next book of beaded vessels. ♥
Materials used:
# broken beads 0
# broken needles 1
# broken threads 0
The Bead Pursuit 