New Tutorial - Cellini Flowers and Leaves Beaded with Peyote Stitch

I'm pretty excited about my newest tutorial, Cellini Flowers and Leaves.  With these instructions, you can learn to make earrings and a pendant with sparkling leaves and flowers. Cellini Flowers and Leaves are my original variations on beaded Cellini spiral, combining peyote and herringbone stitches.

Beading leaves is fast, fun, and easier than it looks. After you master leaves in two sizes, try a flower and a branch, and assemble everything into a cascading corsage pendant. Then bead earrings. And if you still want more, try the large flower beaded bead shown below. Aside from an 8 mm round bead in the small flower, everything is stitched with regular Japanese seed beads, using only a gram or two of each color. So if you collect seed beads, you probably already have everything you need. There's no need to buy more beads; just get right to beading!

This project is suitable for advanced beginning beaders who want to learn more about peyote and herringbone stitches. For you designer types, the pattern ends with drawings to inspire you to create your own beaded jewelry compositions with Cellini Flowers and Leaves. With so many different designs in one pattern, you could combine the techniques to make your own designs for pendants, bracelets and elaborate necklaces.

Cellini Flowers and Leaves is my third tutorial using the Cellini beading technique, and it won't be the last! The first was Slugs in Love. This is a new Slugfest kit with matching earrings that I assembled. 

 I still have a couple kits left before they are all sold out.

The second was Snail Shells and Twisty Bits. With this tutorial, you can make a bangle bracelet like this.

You can also make necklaces and doughnuts like these...

... as well as pendants in various sizes, like these.

And this example shows how Twisty Bits work seamlessly with classic tubular Cellini spiral stitch.

As always, thanks for looking.

New Tutorial - Delta Queen Necklace with Beaded Pendant and Toggle Clasp

I just released my newest tutorial, and I admit I'm quite pleased with it.  It's one of the most involved tutorials I've ever written.  This tutorial explains how to weave the Delta Queen Necklace with beads and thread.

A dramatic pendant hangs from a thick cable of beads.

The necklace is finished with a beaded toggle clasp, a new clasp design created just for this necklace. Everything is woven with honeycomb weave (with a bit of herringbone weave), including the Daisy Chain Cable. Honeycomb weave like right angle weave (RAW), but with other angles. You don’t need to know RAW to follow this tutorial, but you do need to know how to weave the Daisy Chain Cable, shown below. If you don’t know the Daisy Chain Cable, you can find it in my Etsy shop here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/225147305/

To the best of my knowledge, honeycomb weave was first introduced in my paper, Using tiling theory to generate angle weaves with beads on page 21 as an example of a 2-across-edge angle weave.  In particular, honeycomb weave uses the tiling by regular hexagons, and the hexagons are very visible at the top of the pendant.  It's always been one of my favorite weaves in that paper, but it's taken me until now to design something with it.  I'm sure it won't be my last use of this weave.

This Delta Queen Necklace tutorial is a long project, suitable for intermediate to advanced bead weavers who are already very comfortable with the Daisy Chain Cable. The tutorial is a PDF file with 31 pages, including over 160 photos and illustrations. That's a lot of steps, but I think it's a fun project because you're not doing a billion repeats of the same thing (except the necklace cable.  That has a lot of repeats).  There are lots of different elements, and that gives you the chance to make lots of different coordinating components that all assemble into a single finished necklace.  Also, you don't need any fancy bead shapes, so you can really play with color rather than wasting time trying to track down that one weird bead shape in just the right color.

Can I tell you?  I'm really happy it's finally done... Although part of me wants to make another one of these necklaces, I'm also ready to move on to the next project because I've got a bunch more ideas for flat weaves that I'm really itching to try.

Thanks for looking!

New Tutorial -- Snail Shells & Twisty Bits, Beaded with Peyote Stitch and Cellini Spiral

For the last couple months, I've been working on some new variations of Cellini Spiral. 

With nothing more than seed beads and thread, you can learn to make bracelets, pendants, and beaded beads using my new tutorial, Snail Shells and Twisty Bits.

Like the popular Slugs in Love beaded pendants, Snail Shells and Twisty Bits are my original variations on the common Cellini spiral, combining peyote stitch, increases, and decrease.

This tutorial teaches you several different techniques that you can use to make all the designs shown here, or you can combine them in new ways to design your own beaded jewelry.

This tutorial is designed for beaders who already know how to bead weave Cellini Spiral and join two ends. If you would like to learn these techniques, I recommend this free video by Jill Wiseman:

The pattern for Snail Shells and Twisty Bits is suitable for intermediate bead weavers, with enough design possibilities to entertain advanced bead weavers. You can make lots of different designs, all with just seed beads and thread. No fancy shapes required.

The tutorial is a whopping 26 pages, with over 120 full color illustrations and photographs, making it one of my longest beading tutorials I've ever written.  I was very tempted to break it into two separate tutorials, limiting each to one main project with a variation or two, but I made 8 different designs all using the same techniques, and I can imagine at least as many more. By keeping it whole, I found that I could teach a bunch of different techniques that work together. That way, you beaders can combine the techniques to make your own designs for pendants, bracelets, and beaded beads. The tutorial gives highly detailed instructions for every step in the necklaces and bracelet, and then I show you large photos and give charts and commentary to help you build increasingly larger spirals and more complex pieces using the same techniques. It's both a project tutorial and a technique tutorial.  So, ask yourself, do you love Cellini spiral?  If so, then you will really enjoy Snail Shells and Twisty Bits.

Thanks for looking!

New Tutorial -- Mini Crown Earrings

Mini Crown Earrings: Beaded with right angle weave, these seed bead earrings are small, light, and super cute!

As you can see, these earrings are very small.

Tutorial now available. https://www.etsy.com/listing/202127734/
Here you can see all 13 pages.

 You can use almost all seed beads, but in this pair I added bicone crystals.

 And in this pair, I used tiny Swarovski pearls surrounding red siam round crystals.

These little crowns are made with Modified Right Angle Weave (MRAW). Each earring has lots of detail and intricacy in a tiny component. It's a design I came up with in 2010, and it has taken me this long to finally complete the pattern. I hope you find it worth the wait. 

Instant Download PDF Patterns Now Available

We are continuing to get your patterns relisted as PDF instant downloads at reduced prices. It's a slow process, but today we got the Borromean Link patterns and kits back on the website.

We also have patterns and kits for the Color Medallion and the Starburst Galaxy, shown below.

Thanks for looking!

Eucalyptus Leaves Bracelet: Part 5 of the Beaded Lace Adventure

It's been a couple weeks since I reported on the Beaded Lace Adventure, and during that time, I've given a lot of thanks, ate a lot of delicious food with my friends and family, and managed to finish one new tutorial.  I hope you'll think it's a good one.  This is Part 5 of the beaded lace adventure, which I call Eucalyptus Leaves.  Eucalyptus is a two-for-one pattern which shows how to make this bracelet,

as well as the Eucalyptus Clover, a four-petaled design that plays well with the other lace motifs in the adventure. It's like the four-petaled flower from Part 2, but bigger and more elaborate.  A bunch of them in a row makes a nice band for a collar or bracelet.

In fact, I will use most of these clovers in the collar I am currently stitching, which I'll share when it's finished.  In the mean time, here are some of the designs I've been playing with, and the tutorial includes a few more to inspire you to make one for yourself. 

Here you can see what the eucalyptus vine looks like in black. I think looks like some mod black lace from the 1950s, super chic.  I should probably finish this bracelet, but I'd rather work on the collar because it's bigger and more elaborate.  

The eucalyptus tutorial even includes a few lacy snowflake designs like this one.  How pretty would this be hanging in a window, twinkling when the sun shines on it, and lacy when the sun shines through it.  

 

To conclude this post, I'm thrilled to share the work of a fellow beading blogger... From a companion on the Adventure, here is bead work by Tanya of Pixiloo.  

She made this beautiful necklace using my Beaded Lace Swags tutorial.  I love how she stacked two different swag designs, and added pink daggers to make such a lovely necklace.  The colors she chose look very antique to me.  I like it. Can I tell you, I am so exited to have someone joining me on this adventure, because I think the possibilities are huge and potentially gorgeous (like Tanya's necklace here), and Tanya promised to make more beaded lace!  So I'm waiting patiently for that.   Tanya also wrote a nice review of the Beaded Lace Adventure on her blog, and for that I am thankful.  And for you reading my blog, too. Thanks for looking.  

Lotus Drop Pendants Bracelets

So there's a lot of different ways to link together Lotus Drops to make jewelry other than earrings.  In particular, you can make this pendant.

Or you can flip the drops with the petals pointing in and make this pendant.

You can also make bracelets like this.

And here's a Doceri drawing showing some other possibilities for bracelets.

New Pattern: Beaded Wisdom Mandala

Here's my latest pattern, the beaded Wisodom Mandala, named after the five Wisdoms.

The Beaded Wisdom Mandala is a symmetric beaded pendant that is reversible. It is woven with two layers of seed beads throughout most of the piece except for an abundance of crystals that show through the windows of seed beads. The layering creates a pendant that looks different on each side. It has five-fold symmetry on one side, and nearly ten-fold symmetry on the other.

 The mandala hangs from a beaded tube with jump rings to make an easily wearable pendant. The 22 page pattern shows a variety of pendants in different colors, a few of which I show here.

Beaded Wisdom Mandala

In the pattern, I explain how to make the pendant and the hanging tube in three different sizes so you can make a complete necklace, like this Earthy Mandala Necklace. The mandala is woven with a combination of double outline stitch, loops, square stitch, and peyote stitch.  Here you can see one of my early Wisdom Mandalas, before I figured out how to link the mandala to the hanging tube with jump rings.

The hanging tube is woven with super right angle weave (SRAW) with embellishment.

I really love that the front and back are so different.  Measuring just 1 3/4 inches across, and the complete pendant is just 2 1/2 inches tall, they are pretty detailed for their small size. If you like playing with color (and size 15° and 11° seed beads), you'll love making these.  Thanks for looking!

Lotus Drop Necklace Kits

Last month, I introduced the Lotus Drop Earrings.  Now I've got a Lotus Drop Necklace to show you.  This one is a kit.

The necklace is 20 inches long (51 cm), longer than what I typically wear, but it seems right for the shape of the dangles.  Of course, you can make it shorter if you want by leaving out some of the components.

Then, with the leftovers you could make matching earrings.  Anyway, I kind of really like this next photo.

As I was making this necklace, I was excited when I realized that I could source the beads to make a limited number of kits, all except the blue briolette drops.  So the kits include everything but the briolette drops and the wire I used to wrap them.  I left out the drops because it is terribly difficult and expensive to acquire natural faceted briolette beads in bulk.  Plus, I didn't think the ones I used are particularly the "right" choice, and you might enjoy, just as well, finding your own drops to make your necklace personalized for you. That way, every assembled kit will be a little different.

Here is what this necklace looks like as a drawing.

I used the drawing to help me make the necklace.  With Doceri software on my iPad, it's a lot easier to make copies than it is with real beads.  Doceri lets me design complex bead work quickly and easily, especially for a design like this, where a few motifs are repeated over and over, and there are lots of different ways to combine them.  The necklace I made wasn't the first necklace I designed on my iPad.  Here are a few others.

Here are some small ones.

I have patterns and kits available if you would like to make your own Lotus Drop Necklace.   Thanks for looking.

Starburst Necklace (Water), Part 2

I'm still working on my Starburst Galaxy necklace kit in this color scheme inspired by water. 

I think I finished all of the stars I'm going to use in this piece. I wanted to make a nice sample of the different sizes, so the kits I'm going to assemble for my students will make all of the stars shown here. Still, I'm going to leave it up to the individual students to find their own drop beads. I'm also going to let them decide how they want to finish the back, or if they want to make a bracelet or earrings or what.

...which brings me to my next task, figuring out how to finish the back of this necklace... with a beaded cable, maybe? A metal chain, ribbon, or stringing beads? Oh the possibilities!

Thanks for looking.