Beads Made of Beads (Tutorial Attached)

I just took some time off to create some jewelry for myself, but we both know it won’t be just for me for long. I’m still working on figuring out my “brand” and where I want my Etsy store to go, so it’s entirely possible you’ll be seeing these again in the future.

You can find the tutorial for the beads in the garnet and brass necklace in this post. I’m pretty sure I’m not allowed to share the process for the larger blue beaded beads in the first pair of earrings; I learned how to make them in a class and I’d rather not step over some kind of ownership line, but they sure are pretty. I did design the beaded beads in the third piece I made this weekend, and I’m totally happy to share that tutorial after the pictures of my work.

I’ve had these pieces of garnet hanging around forever; garnet is my birthstone but I just hadn’t found anything to use them for. I turned them into beaded beads with size 15/0 Czech seed beads also used in this pair of earrings, and some left over 15/0 Toho seed beads and 11/0 Aikos (also from Toho) from the dragon earrings. I love the way this necklace feels and I cannot wait to have a reason to wear it.

These are mostly some 8mm Czech firepolish, 4mm and 3mm Swarovski bicones, 11/0 seed beads from Miyuki, and 15/0 Tohos. I really like this kind of beaded bead because they end up looking really pretty and intricate.

I’ve had these pieces of sodalite forever, and really wanted to do something with them. Turns out the key was some pretty little beaded beads at the bottoms for a fun pair of earrings. Here’s the tutorial for those beads.

You’ll want four 3-4mm rounds. I ended up using some 4mm firepolish beads for the ones in the earrings, but silver spacers here. You’ll also need two different sizes of seed bead. In the case of this tutorial I used a size 11/o (the orange ones) and a size 9/0 (the green ones), both Czech glass. In the earrings I used a 11/0 from Miyuki and a 15/0 from Toho.

String all four 4mm beads, interspersed with the larger seed beads as shown.

Tie ends together to form a circle

Exit the circle through a seed bead as shown.

String 2 smaller seed beads, 1 larger one, and two smaller ones, and connect to the next large seed bead in the circle.

Repeat four times until you’ve completed the circle. String through the first part of the first loop and exit the top larger seed bead as shown.

Connect the four top larger seed beads as shown.

Pull tight and knot off. Do not cut thread, instead work thread through seed beads until you are exiting a large seed bead from the original circle. Repeat the process for the other side.

Close bead and tie off. Your bead should look like this.

I hope that made sense to you! As always, questions and comments are welcome in the comments section!

Mathematical Beadwork

Or how a project for class was actually really fun and fascinating.

I’m taking this Mathematics of Art class for my Math 1 credit because I am a liberal arts student through and through, and I wanted to share a project I did for the class because I think it’s really neat.

We had two projects due, actually. For the first one we’d been talking a lot about the mathematics in patterns so I took a previous project and analysed it.

I will never stop loving these bracelets.

Anyway, for my second project I wanted to build on the ideas we’d explored with patterns, but I also really wanted to do a project in 3-D. So I started thinking about applicable ways to use beadwork to create something in 3 dimensions.

I have found a new muse in Gwen Fisher. Her work is beautiful, and her gallery at the bridges math/art site is stunning. I was especially impressed by her expression of Borromean Rings.

It was the one in the lower right that really caught my eye. Where have I seen shapes like that before? (Once again, Diane Fitzgerald is still totally my hero) It’s worth noting that it’s mathematically impossible to manifest Borromean Rings as perfect circles in the real world, so using ellipses or ovals is kinda unavoidable.

This is the set of rings I came up with. The idea behind Borromean Rings is that any two of the rings are not linked together in any way, but all three together are impossible to separate. In order to accomplish this, I created two separate rings first, and then had to work the third around the first two to link them together.

The piece was still a little loose for my taste as a pendant after I’d finished with it, so I stabilized it by adding a single silver decorative bead to the center. It also, isn’t actually attached to any of the rings.

 

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to keep working with a pattern. This time, I had to find a pattern that would tessellate not only laterally, but also around a 5 (or in this case, a 7) count tube. I managed to find a really fascinating article  which contained a bunch of different patterns for bead crochet bracelets.

That’s not a problem, I’m good at adapting patterns, and the way the beads lay when finished is so similar to peyote, it wasn’t hard to adapt. That bracelet up there is theirs, they show that the pattern does in fact tessellate.

 

Of course, my adaption is on a much smaller scale, but here you can see how I expressed this pattern.

 

It does tessellate circularly, though the ends of the oval disrupt the pattern.

Each of the rings has a base color and a contrast color which changes based on the ring.

It’s not exactly something I tend to wear, but I really like it, and as a conceptual project it works well. Let me know what you think in the comments!

 

 

I’ve not been around much

I’ve been doing a lot of things. I was working on a show, which just closed.

Pretty set, no? I love this lighting.

We did a stage adaption of Donnie Darko. No, it didn’t make any more sense than the movie. Here are some chairs, with a stencil detail for your viewing pleasure.

I’m actually rather fond of these.

I also tackled the lego cookies I saw somewhere on the internet. They’re basic sugar cookies with a decent amount of food coloring in the frosting and M&Ms.

They turned out well, no?

I’m also working on a project for my Mathematics of Art class. I did my first project analyzing the symmetry in the big Sashiko bracelet I made a while ago.

My second project is all very hush hush until I figure out exactly what I’m doing, but here’s a teaser.

There will be infinite pattern tiling involved, and I’m working out this idea with Borromean rings.

I’ll let you all know when that gets worked out. I’m pretty sure I’ll be proud of it when it’s done.

 

Hoop Earrings… Sorta

I had so much fun making these square hoop earrings…

that I wanted to make more, in different shapes, so I thought I’d share my latest creation- these pretty bronze and purple oval hoop earrings.

Love ‘em.

Silver Jewelry Competition

As you all are likely very aware, I have two specialty areas. I do seed bead work, specifically big complicated projects which are often adapted from other ideas. I also do prop work, mostly with the aid of tea dye and a hot glue gun, and the internet.

Metal work is not included in my list of skills. I do some wire bending on occasion, and I know my way around a jump ring, but real silver, and especially the wonderful work from Claddagh Design is waaaay out of my league (and price point). Usually what I do to get around this issue, is that I adapt the piece in question. (Again, I link to my dragon earrings)

I’ve been struggling for quite a while to find a way to translate an idea I’ve had floating around in the back of my head into seed beads. Making the beads I use smaller usually creates a more unified final product, but it hasn’t been working out in this particular case. Sometimes I am able to use chain or wire to create what I want to create, sometimes I vary colors, and sometimes I use metallic beads. Unfortunately this particular idea is very stubborn, and (SPOILER ALERT: MOM SERIOUSLY I LOVE YOU BUT PLEASE STOP READING HERE. I’LL TALK TO YOU LATER) I’m actually very keen on creating this piece for my mother. So I’m entering the Claddagh Design’s Custom Jewelry Competition

Mom has this one pair of earrings that she absolutely loves, which I can’t get a picture of because we’re about an ocean apart right now. Of course they’re metal work, which is why I haven’t made her fifty pairs just like them by now. This idea is in a similar vein, but is likely to be closer to the picture I have in my head of her earrings than it is to actually reflect the style of those earrings.

I’d like to have earrings made for her- along the guidelines which are recommended (1.5 cm in size).

Disclaimer- I don’t draw for a reason. This sketch took me forever, and it’s still super conceptual. I’m also mostly unfamiliar with the kind of metal work they do over at Claddagh, so while I do know the basics about which tools you need, and can sort of tell what’s possible, I really don’t know the boundaries here. If this design needs to change to accommodate the medium, I totally get it.

I am envisioning the  piece as being etched, mostly. They use that technique in the (super awesome) Ogham designs pretty frequently, so I’m fairly certain that will not be a problem. The bit I’m more worried about is actually the second part of the design, the vines and leaves that stick out away from the drop shaped center do-nut. I am envisioning (and again, I don’t know the extent to which this would actually work out) that those pieces would stick out away from the center piece, joining in a similar way that the trinity knot in this post does. The overall simplistic but clearly designed feeling of the trinity knot is kind of what I’m going for here. Based on poking around on the Claddagh website, I don’t think it’s too unreasonable, and if it is, I’m totally willing to bend my design to fit the constraints of the medium.

This is just the back view- I spent some time trying to decide how to reflect a bit of our family in the piece, and the best thing I could come up with was to have our four (Mom, Dad, Brother, Me) birth dates in a circle etched very small. (If you have any better ideas- please I’m open to suggestion) I do want this to be a classy set of earrings, not a LOOK I’M A MOM set of earrings. I used to work at a bead store. Those annoy me.

The biggest reason this has become so important to me is that my mother and I are pretty far apart right now. I haven’t seen her in close to 6 months, and I won’t get to see her again until some unspecified point in time in March. Her birthday was last week, but due to the time difference in our locations, and our busy schedules, I only got about 2 minutes on the phone with her. My mom deserves more from her only daughter, for all the support she’s given me over the years.

Even if, for some reason I was lucky enough to win this contest, I still am looking for ways to translate this into my own medium. Anyone who has any ideas about how to do that, please do comment below!

Regular programming will resume soon.

Square Hoop Earrings

I’ve long had earring envy for those delicious large hoop earrings every girl seems to have a pair of. Having my ears pierced for over a year now, I figured it was time I get me some.

Being me, I don’t do anything the normal way. Here’s my take on a large sized pair of hoop earrings.

So you can get an idea of the size;

Also inspired by Diane Fitzgerald, who you’ll remember has inspired me several times.

The Sparkly-est of the Sparkly

Hello Everybody!

I’ve been busy, did a show this weekend (more on that to come) and also was helping out with the orientation, so it’s been a bit chaotic. However, there was a *ahem* silver lining to all this.

Bad joke, yes I know. But I was invited to a function this evening, and therefore I needed awesome sparkly jewelry to wear. I raided my pitifully small stash of Swarovski stuff, and came up with this necklace/earring combo.

The earrings aren’t really my style, so I’ve taken them apart already, but I bought a ton of base-metal chain for super cheap. 50 cents a meter cheap. You can expect a few posts including obscene amounts of chain in the near future. Provided I don’t get super busy again.

But still. Sparkly jewelry!

Chain Bracelet

I’ve been adventuring in the land of peyote stitch for a while, I’ll admit, but there was one project which had been itching at the back of my mind for a really long time. It’s not an original design, I didn’t even end up changing the color choice. It’s a design from my long-time hero from the bead world Diane Fitzgerald‘s book Shaped Beadwork. Her innovative way of creating geometrical shapes from seed beads captured my imagination, even if the book sat on my shelf for a year after I got it (autographed too!) because I couldn’t seem to get the stitch to work out correctly.

I kept at it, every time a project popped up that might be perfect for her designs, and eventually I made it work with this project all the way back in February.

If you recall, I had made a bracelet and needed a pendant in the same color so that I would have something to wear it with.

Having done that, I began to formulate my next big project inspired from her book. As you may have guessed, I dislike simply repeating other people’s projects. I prefer to add my own twist to any design, but Diane Fitzgerald’s beaded chain was so perfect I couldn’t help myself. I had to have one, colors and all.

Granted, I still don’t have one. Her version is a necklace (which I am working on; I am planning a necklace somewhere between an opera length and a lariat length)

(Capture from Google Books)

Her version has a stripe of black beads around the outside, but when I finally got the beads, I didn’t have the book with me, so I decided to work from memory. I guess that does make my version unique!

The other thing I decided I wanted to change was the clasp mechanism. Toggles are easy to make, I’ve done it several times, and because of that they’re easy to make to match your project, but as a fundamental rule, I don’t trust toggle clasps. I decided to embed two small magnet clasps into half-ovals, so that I could clasp it together easily, and even better I could use the same clasp on a bracelet length chain, or a necklace length chain. No fuss, no muss! It’ll keep me from wearing both at the same time too, which I think would be just too much going on.

When I have the necklace done, sometime in the far off future (these things take time), I’ll share that too!

Design Issues. They Abound.

This post is going to be a bit of a technical jargon filled rant, and for that I apologize. I’m still gonna spread it in the hope that someone can say something that helps me with this dilemma. The reason I’ve been slow at updating is not that I’ve been travelling all over the place and it’s not that I’m super busy with work, but actually that I’m a bit stuck on this project.

See, I’ve been reinventing myself as an artist, because I have the time to, and because I’ve been thinking more about my “brand”. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, but I do really fun stitch work, which is more modern than most of the stuff you see, as well as being more versatile. I’ve been trying to find my voice in jewelry for a long time, and especially now that I’m in the land of glass beads, I’m getting there.

Then I decided to try and do a tapestry piece. More to come on that later. Thankfully, I got stuck on trying to find the right beads for the project, or I would have started and wasted a lot of thread. So that project is on hold, but then I saw this image, from the always awesome Steotch. I posted about it earlier.

Inspiration struck. I wanted to make a bracelet in a similar vein to my Sashiko bracelets.

Then I realized that in order to pixellate my lyrics correctly (I chose the Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire theme) I’d have to do a square stitch. I started with that, but quickly realized that the issue would be the stiffness of the finished work, which I talked about in my Dr Who Scarf post which was also full of jargon-y bead stuff. So, with half my bead stuff in the US, and the bead loom at my parents place about a year away from me, I improvised.

 

 

 

 

It actually worked out pretty well, despite my inability to stick to a design without making mistakes. Then another issue reared its ugly head. Remember (or pretend to) how in the Dr. Who post I discussed the rows of beads creating the right texture for the work? Well the texture that worked so well for that project didn’t here.

It doesn’t feel as solid, or as much like one piece which happens to be made of beads, which is the feeling I think I succeeded with for the Sashiko piece. It feels more like something I made at summer camp, like a friendship bracelet. Admittedly, this is a much more advanced version, but didn’t we all have those beaded bracelets with our names on them? I just don’t like the juvenile feeling behind it, because it limits the uses of the jewelry. My goal is to bring bead weaving to a place where it’s primary function is not as a crazy art piece or a friendship bracelet, but to a place where it is an every day accessory for people who are too old to go to camp, even as a counselor, but too young to have kids over the age of 15.

That being said, I’m going to start to play with peyote stitch fonts, and hopefully I can find something which would be as regular, but if anyone has any other ideas for how I can make this work, please let me know. Anything constructive you have to say might trigger the solution in my brain.

Take this as a warning that posting times will be longer as long as I am preoccupied with this particular nasty dilemma.

Beaded Beads; the How To

Over a week ago, I posted this teaser post which was initially intended just to be another post sharing some fun new jewelry I’d forgotten I hadn’t posted about yet. Then I realized that the beaded beads in the post might be something other people would want to make. And then life got in the way.

In general, I’m not a huge fan of most of the fads which have hit the beading world in the last four years. I love mixed media work in theory, but in practice it often comes off feeling cheap and craft-sy, where I prefer jewelry that feels sleek and professional. There was a big wave of picture frame jewelry that came through, introducing many of us to various resins. I had the same problem with many of the results of this fad as well. In general, fads tend to feel cheap and homemade to me, while older techniques from metal work, linking, and stitching almost always feel like real, lasting jewelry. One fad that I can definitely get behind, which is quickly becoming one of the longer-lasting techniques any seed-beader should have in their bag of tricks, is the beaded bead.

Today, I present to you, a how to for these beads, which I made up myself a few weeks ago, and immediately loved. If this is a pattern you’ve encountered somewhere else, I apologize. I guess great minds think alike? Anyway, be nice, and don’t use this tutorial to teach or re-post without crediting please. The creative arts are tricky, I know, but this is one I’d actually like to hang on to.

Without further ado, I’m going to try and explain how you make these lovely beaded beads. This is probably a project for someone who has some experience with a needle and thread already. If you’re an absolute beginner, I suggest trying a peyote stitch project first, many examples of which you can find by perusing my blog.

In my beaded beads, I used size 11/0 seed beads of various colors (both Czech and Japanese, although I’ve found that the rounder Czech beads tend to work better for this project) and 4 4mm spacer beads. You could replace the spacer beads with anything else that is a 4mm size, or if you want to make them bigger you can just up the sizes, keeping the ratio steady. They’re not intended to be super big beads, but if you’re looking for a way to showcase some really cool stones, this could make a cool focal bead.

For the purposes of this tutorial, I put together most of a bead using 4mm spacers and 8mm spacers, to get better pictures. From here on out I’ll be referring to the 4mm beads in the pictures as seed beads, and the 8mm ones as spacers.

1) Start by stringing four of your seed beads.

2) Loop through them to create a circle, tie off, and continue. You’ll end up going through them a few times to secure the rest of the bead, so don’t worry too much about tension or security right now, just make sure that knot is tight!

3) String a spacer onto your string and pass your needle back through the bead you just came through, so you create a loop above your bead with the spacer on it. Pull tight.

4) Repeat with the other three beads in your loop, so your piece looks a bit like a cross. End with your thread coming out of one of your spacer beads.

5) Pass your needle through all four beads, creating a circle.

6) Pull tight. The beads should cinch up, and look like this from the top…

and this from the side. You can see your previous loop of seed beads there, securely fastened to your new circle of spacers.

7) Repeat steps 3-6 with four new seed beads. If you’re working with actual seed beads and 4mm beads, it’ll look something like this.

Yes, the dimensions look a bit skewed, but when you finish the bead it’ll provide a tight hole on either end of the bead which helps when stringing and linking beads.

After step seven, your beaded bead will look like this. End with your thread coming out of one of your seed beads. Doesn’t matter which one.

And from the side.

Here’s the part where it gets less definitively easy to photograph, so those of you who learn better by reading are in luck.

I did fuss with this picture quite a bit in the hope that you’d be able to see it better, so sorry about loss of color, but I think it’s worth it.

8) String four seed beads, and pass your needle through the seed bead from your first loop which corresponds to the seed bead your thread ended up coming out of in step 7, in the opposite direction from the way you threaded it originally, so that you bridge the gap between your spacer beads with the four seed beads.

9) Repeat this process by adding four more seed beads to your thread, and passing back through your point of origin in step 8. After this step the goal is to cover all four gaps between spacer beads with seed beads. You’re halfway done. Pass through the first four you threaded in step 8, and instead of going through the same seed bead to anchor it, head the other direction, through the other seed bead on this side.

10) Add four more seed beads, and continue this pattern until you’ve got a fully anchored beaded bead, with all four gaps between spacer beads covered.

11) Tie off your thread to itself. Pass through all four spacer beads in a circle. Tie it again. Pass through whichever of the seed beads is nearest, tie it off one more time, and cut your thread.

Congrats! You have a beaded bead. I know it got kinda picture-less at the end. When I have some down time I’ll work on creating and photographing that ending a little bit more clearly, but for now, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to write a comment!