At the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC back in February (I think...) I bought a pattern and the beads to make a bracelet and then promptly forgot about it. The stall holder was wearing the bracelet and we asked if she had a pattern. She sold it to us for 50p. When I opened the bag last week to make this bracelet, I noticed that the pattern was by Sabine Lippert! I'm sure she shouldn't have been selling that pattern - it's just a page photocopied, not a fancy pattern.
The pattern called for Super8s. In the bag were size 11/0 and 15/0 sead beads, button beads, fire polished crystals (which I remember we'd substituted for the bicones asked for) and some Mini Duos. I decided I must have bought the Mini Duos as I liked the colour and that the pattern needed the standard Superduos. No idea why I thought that. After doing two rounds, I googled Super8 beads and found they're the same dimensions as the Mini Duos... The sample at the top is done with the Mini Duos, the bottom one with the Superduos. You can see a difference in size, but I think the pattern would probably work with both.
I just could not get the tension right on this project. Some squares are far too tight and are kind of curled over at the edges with the button bead popping out the centre. Others are too loose with the thread showing.
And of course, decent photos were not to be had...
Since I've been off sick, I haven't done much crafting, so a class at The Bead Shop Nottingham was good for me, it meant I actually made something.
It was a beadweaving class using a crystal rivoli (the sparkly bit in the centre), number 11/0 seed beads and mini duos. I used two colours of the duos.
As ever, it's hard to get a good photo of sparkly jewellery, but this will have to do! Instead of showing you one good photo, I'll show you several mediocre ones.
It was a fun pattern and quick and easy to do. The bezel is in right-angle-weave rather than the usual peyote so it was nice to learn a new bezelling stitch.
This is a photo of the back so you can see what the back of the rivoli looks like. As you can see, it's pointed, I'm not sure why, perhaps that makes it easier to capture in a bezel than if it were flat backed? I now need to decide what to string this on, I think I perhaps need to make a bead-woven necklace.
And the winner of the Most Descriptive Blog Post Title is... me!
Yes, it's a bracelet. And it's purple.
And I have two identical photos of it.
I used this free tutorial, but only did one row of the repeat. It's made using Superduos and size 11 and size 8 seed beads.
That is all I have to say on this subject.
During a couple of our classes at The Bead Shop Nottingham, Steph the tutor had worn a bracelet made from Superduos which looked like it was knitted. My mum was smitten with this bracelet. I had a good look at it and when I got home that night, I started to try to replicate it (with Steph's permission, well, we kind of bullied her into it!).
I had some galvanised silver Superduos which are like a double width seed bead with 2 holes.
Success! The actual weaving was easy, it was starting it off and getting into the right position to start weaving that was the hard bit.
A tube of Superduos doesn't go that far... it wasn't quite long enough for a bracelet so I had to add an extender chain. Mum was thrilled with it (or she did a great job at pretending she was!).
