Piggies in a circle

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I was going to bead a sample with the "herringbone-ish" stitch in a circle. Well, I did have enough beads after ripping up the piggy bead samples to do it and this is the result. Above is a close-up and below is something a bit closer to the natural scale (it's about 31 mm wide).

The seeds used are 8/0 and then the rest is just piggy beads, stitch the same way as in the straight sample (see below) and then joined up. Did learn one thing though: if you want to stabilize the inner ring by going through the centre holes a round or two, you have to do that with a separate thread before joining the circle together or it'll be too tight for the needle. Because it needs stabilizing. Perhaps using double thread or a heavier thread (I don't want to say Fireline...) and/or tighten the thread tension even more, but I think just running the thread through all the inner beads once or twice will do a lot.

Guess the next step from here will be to try a few variations with other bead shapes either in the outer or the inner circle. But that'll have to wait as I'm reluctant to rip up this sample. In fact, this one's no longer a sample but a component I just have to figure out what I want to do with. A pendant? A brooch? An objet d'art? Perhaps it's even a big-hole beaded bead?