Posting daily right now, I think...
Anyway, this is just a short post, showing my latest bead crochet test. This time I used nothing but drops, three in each loop. I ran out of beads as well so this strip is just long enough to make half a bracelet. Not sure if I'll make it in to some sort of bracelet or just keep it as a sample.
The drops are from a Miyuki mix called Golden Grains.
I love this. What colors did you use? You say that you crocheted this, is it perlen? Also, I just LOVE the tumbled glass I saw elsewhere in your blog. What do you use to make them?
ReplyDelete...I am full of questions, sorry.
Thanks! And that's nothing to apologize for. I'm just glad to be of help, answering questions.
ReplyDeleteThe crochet piece -- which is just a short piece, not a full bracelet lenght as the text might make you think -- is made using a technique best described as chain stitch bead crochet. There's a short free tutorial at beadpatterncentral.com if you want to learn more.
Pretty much all bead crochet you find on my blog is done this way as I don't have the patience to make bead crochet ropes or learn turkish bead crochet. This technique is fast (once you get past pre-stringing all the beads) and you can do so many variations, adding different bead shapes, altering the number of beads in each loop etc. Just check out my other posts under the bead crochet label! (And at least one of them will have links to a blog post where I've collected tutorials and project using the technique).
For this particular piece, I used a readymade mix of drop beads by Miyuki called Golden Grains. It includes light, medium and dark topaz (some of them frosted/matte, some with AB finish), pearl white and lined clear beads. I think some are brass- or bronze-lined while others are colour-lined. Exact content can vary and I don't have the names of all the colours in the mix. The first and last loop is made using Miyuki 11/0 matte transparent dark topaz.
The glass is tumbled using a regular rock tumbler from Lortone. Some use sand, which is cheap and easy to find -- plus it mimics the natural process of tumbling sea glass -- but so far my sis and I have mostly used the tumbler media that came with the kit. Silicone Carbide, I believe it is. Depending on how smooth you want the surface, you use either a coarser or finer grit. Some of the tumbled glass you can see on the blog is coarser, has a slightly rough surface: other times we've tumbled it smoother so it's more like etched glass. If the glass has sharp edges it's better to start with a coarser grit and then do a second round with finer. If you use rounded pebbles etc, you can skip the first step and tumble once using only fine grit.
There are a lot of free tuts and instructions online. I've collected some of them in a blog post over on my other blog. The text is in Swedish, but the sites linked to are more or less all of them in English (you can use Google Translate to translate the Swedish text). You'll find the post here: http://manekisparlblogg.blogspot.com/2010/09/teknik-glastrumling.html
It's a lot of fun, I must say. Both glass tumbling and chain stitch bead crochet. :)