The Crafter's Apprentice: spiral stitch

Tuesday, 17 June 2014

A Time To Stitch #7

Today I'm joining in my first ever jewellery making blog hop! I saw the last round of A Time To Stitch and thought it was a great idea. For this round we were told to choose any bead weaving stitch we like, choose a pattern and make three different items to show off the differences just by changing the choice of bead.

I decided to try out the spiral stitch, which I have used before to make a necklace (see here). As a novice beadweaver, it seemed to have the most possibilities.

Now, before I start - I apologise for the photos. My camera is still not working and doesn't seem much of a problem as my tablet takes much better photos anyway... except when it comes to beads! I did my very best...

I started with a basic bracelet to show a contrast. I used hematite and copper size 11/0. It feels chunky and textural.

Next, I wanted to try using beads of different sizes. I couldn't make up my mind which colour to use, so used 4! The core is made of black 11/0s. The outer beads used are size 11/0 and size 6/0 or 7/0 depending what I have. I don't have so many of the larger beads. I did 10 rows of each of the 11/0, then 4 or 5 of the 6/0 depending how chunky they were. I really like this one.

So then I wondered about using beads of different sizes, and different shapes. The only shaped beads I own are some blue cube beads. I paired them with a bronze 11/0 core, and a mixture of blue shades in size 10/0. I did 8 rows of each blue, then 4 rows of cubes, just to make them go all the way round.

So, there were my 3 examples. I couldn't stop there. Rummaging through my seed bead boxes had thrown up so many possibilities that I wanted to try. Each bracelet only took a couple of hours to make, so I had time for more experiments.

Stripes. I picked out some 8/0s in clear (for the core), purple, black and blue. I made the stripes go horizontally around by picking up one of each colour in each row. I love how chunky this bracelet is. I think this one is my favourite.

The obvious next choice was to try the stripes the other way, in short little rows. I went for 11/0s this time in hematite, red and white. I used white as the core and as one of the stripes and I'm not so keen on how it turned out.

All of the bracelets so far had a good contrast between core and outer (except the white in the example above), so I wanted to see what a monochrome mix would look like. I used 8/0s in light and dark blue. I'd love to have a go with a matt and and shiny in the same colour... I might still give that a go.

The last experiment was with a tube of bead soup. Bead soup is a mix of beads, different sizes, finishes and colours. My soups are made from left over or loose beads found around the house or on the table after I've been beading. I used cream for the core. I honestly didn't think I'd like this bracelet but actually, it's my second favourite!