Wow, seven already. This is a variant on Bead 2, using smaller 4mm pearls, size 8 seeds and colour lined crystal 3.4mm drops which look very silly and lovely. I was actually intending to use lentils rather than the drops, which is why I deviated from my usual colour scheme but they simply didn’t work.
4mm cerise glass pearls (picked up randomly on my beady travels)
Miyuki 3.4mm drops Hot Pink Lined Crystal (colour 23)
Galvanised Zest duracoat Miyuki 4205 size 8 seeds
And so to my stash of patterns. I sat down just after I started this project and looked through my various beading books, bookmarking all of the beaded beads I thought would fit in. And my, there are a lot. And then I turned to my digital library of beading magazines, and remembered that Beadwork had done a series of Beaded Beads a couple of years back. I tried some of them at the time, but didn’t have quite the right beads in my stash, and have had more success this time. I’m not going to do the whole set of 5 (as this is a stash only project and I don’t think I’ve got all of the larger beads needed for some of them), but here’s the first one anyway.
It’s from the April/May 2012 Beadwork Magazine, and is by Gwen Fisher – Cluster Beaded Bead. It’s a super one, goes together really nicely and quickly. I don’t tend to have many 8mm rounds knocking around though, so I will need to order some more if I want to repeat this one.
8mm rounds – Neon Purple (BeadsofBohemia)
3mm Fire polished – I substituted 3mm rounds, Neon Ocean Blue Matt (Robin’s Beads)
15 & 11 seeds – Miyuki 1051 Galvanised Silver
8 seeds – Miyuki 356 Purple lined Amethyst AB
None really, nice pattern, clear instructions. I mainly worked off the illustrations rather than the written out steps, which is normal for me, but the steps seem clear if you’re more comfortable with those.
This has inspired and helped me with Beaded Bead 6, although I see now looking at the diagrams again that I used a significantly different thread path and set of steps for Bead 6, even though I thought I was doing something similar………..
I think this is actually my favourite so far – simple, striking and a great way to understand the geometry of beaded beads. I used a free tutorial from Spirala Beading called Zuzana, and will be making more just as soon as I can get my grubby hands on some more pinch beads.
90 pinch beads – Matte Watermelon (from Spoilt Rotten Beads)
1g size 8 seeds – 1052 Galvanized Silver (Stitch N Craft)
12 size 15 seeds – 1052 Galvanized Silver (Stitch N Craft)
12 O beads – Haematite (Robins Beads)
A wooden core bead, I’d guess at 20mm but unfortunately didn’t measure it……sorry.
Now I just need an excuse to order some more pinch beads – and guess what, Ivona, who runs Spirala Beading also has a lovely Etsy shop selling lots of fantastic beads, including a huge range of pinch beads – Beads of Bohemia. What luck!
So, I finished my rope a little late (a couple of days), but then realised the catch I’d planned to use was too fat, and the components wouldn’t have slid on or off the rope over it. Given the way it was designed, I assume Jean means this to be an adaptable piece – wear one, three, all none of the bezelled rivolis as you please. For that to work the catch either has to be removable (which a simple s clasp with loops would b), or small enough that the components can slide.
So, not the right clasp then. As we were away I had to wait until we returned to my stash to dig out a tiny magnetic clasp that will allow the components to slide on and off, and hey presto we’re done.
Many thanks to Jean for a lovely project and for the phenomenal amount of admin she’s had to put in as a victim of her own success. And to all the beaders worldwide, it’s been fab – let’s hope someone is brave enough to do this next year!
So I had another go at beaded bead pattern number 1 – Conway Beaded Bead by GwenBeads. And then a few more goes, and finally I’ve got one finished. Actually I’ve finished two, but the first one is not good so will be fragged………..Interestingly I found this pattern quite challenging, possibly because conceptually it is actually quite simple, and as I was tired I struggled to maintain the absolute accuracy it demands. An single extra thread pass in the wrong place can mean this one doesn’t work, and as the internal structure is all seeds, rather than building on base of larger beads, it is a bit of a nightmare to unpick if you make an error and don’t discover it for a while. Looking on the bright side, my sister Susie Hoad (BeadingBySusie) churns these out in a couple of hours, seemingly without any effort, so I think once I’ve made as many as she has (which is quite a few) I should get the hang of it.
Anyhow, the pattern is by Gwen Fisher of Bead Infinitum fame, and was my first introduction to prismatic RAW (PRAW). On reflection this was quite a tricky one to start with – I might have been better with something like her fun looking Tentacle bangle or the Daisy Chain bangle rather than the full on 3D experience.
Tips
Susie says that this works well in 6s and 8s, and whilst I wouldn’t recommend them for a first go (as maintaining any kind of tension in RAW or netting with 6s is impossible), I’m definitely going to try them next. She also builds out on the embellishment step using twin holed beads of various types, which helps alleviate my slight reservation about the small size of the finished bead (for all that work I’d like something about half as big again – the 11 and 15 version is under an inch in diameter). And Susie has already tried out lots of colours and embellishments, so have a look at her Facebook piccies of them here for inspiration. Very kindly Gwen allows limited commercial use, so I may even be able to sell a few as pendants when I finally get the hang of it and get the completion time down. Overall a very interesting advanced pattern.
One of the wonderful things about the Beadalong is seeing all of the different colourways. It’s unusual to be exposed to so many interpretations of the same design so quickly, and it’s been fascinating looking at the different approaches we all take. Some of us chuck as many colours as possible in, others focus on their favourite colour and use different tones, and others pop a single colour as a highlight with neutrals. For me, as a bright beader, it’s been lovely seeing some really outrageous combinations, but I’ve also become drawn to some of the more sophisticated palettes. I think my next delica project might be done in matte steel, with some antique gold – classic with a twist, and perhaps more wearable than lime, orange, scarlet and fuchsia…..?
Anyway, a few people have asked me to post my bead details so here you are. Seeds and delicas are all Miyuki & from Stitch N Craft (of course):
Rivolis – Chinese ‘Volcano’ from Southampton Bead Shop. I don’t normally buy cheaper rivolis but the colour on these is unique. They are a bit fat, so you need to adapt the pattern (one extra row of delicas did it here), and I don’t use them for my own patterns and materials packs because of that.
Delicas – 1835 Duracoat Galv Zest; 45 Silver lined Orange; 683 Dyed Semi Frosted Silver lined Red Orange; 422 Galv Fuchsia
Seeds – 11 – 4205 Duracoat Galv Zest
Seeds – 15 – 4205 Duracoat Galv Zest; 1310 Dyed Trans Fuchsia
Crystals 3mm – Swarovski Fuchsia
Pearls/Rounds – 2mm Scarlet Czech Rondelles. Not a clue where they came from!!
And as for the next step, I’d guess I still need another 18g or so of delicas, so I may have to make up a mix from my stash (I’m only using stash beads for this and I won’t have enough in a single colour by a long way), or come up with a way to use multiple colours once I know what we’re doing.
Nice, although my tension on the surround has a tendency to distort the bezel, and I prefer the look of the back set of petals to the front….
…..and I cheated a bit too. I wanted the second set to be seen in the middle of the gap of the first set (so offset by two bezel beads), but going out of the next row of peyote was going to leave them only partially offset (1 bezel bead). However, as I had used non-Swarovski rivolis, which have a thick band around the middle (rather than a neat pointy edge), I had already added an extra row of delicas to the bezel, so I was able to bead the second set two rows back from the first set and acheive the tidy offset.
Lovely sparkly petals very cleverly designed. Yummy, and less fiddly than day 1 (I find fringe a little trying).
The first instalment of my new ‘Beading Beaded Beads’ project, in which I will bead lots of beaded beads and tell you all about it. Beaded Bead 1 was not good – I rather suspect this was my fault rather than the designer’s, so I’ll re-do it and tell you about it later.
Beaded Bead 2 is from a free tutorial by BeadTurtle. It’s a nice simple tutorial using one of the standard techniques for building a dodecahedron – groups of 3 larger beads linked through groups of 5 smaller beads, and I’m sure some similar ones will appear later in this project. She specifies size 10 seeds, but I don’t have any, and as this project is supposed to be a bit of a stash buster I had to use what I had already. I’ve tried the tutorial before with size 11s and it didn’t work, so I went for size 8 seeds and tweaked the embellishment.
30 6mm Opaque Turquoise rounds
<1g Seed beads size 8 Miyuki 1427 Silver lined dark violet
<1g Seed beads size 11 Miyuki 352 Fuchsia lined aqua lustre
Don’t worry too much about tension as the final embellishment of the seed bead groups of five tensions and stiffens the ball (up to that point it was alarmingly floppy). Where she adds the yellow centre to the groups of size 10 seeds, I simply added an 11 between each of my 8s.
This was a lovely quick and comfortable project, and has given me a good base technique which I will use again and embellish. Although I think these were my only 6mm rounds so there won’t be another one with rounds in this project – it would work equally well with any type of larger bead, and I’ve seen similar techniques applied to fire polisheds, crystals and even spikes.
For my next beaded bead I’m going to try an even simpler version, which omits the smaller groups of 5 and just goes for the triangles of larger beads – hopefully soon! And then there is Beaded Bead 1 to try again………….
The Indecisive Beader 