Having fun with rizo beads

No, I haven't disappeared from the online world, though for some reason I haven't blogged since new year's eve and I've forgotten a Meowy Monday. Partially it's been because I've had fun with a couple of "late christmas gifts" I got offered during boxing week.

During christmas, Karin from swedish bead shop Fru Pärla asked me if I wanted to have some new rizo beads to play with and blog about. Fru Pärla was the first swedish shop to get the new beads that were presented by Sabine Lippert in December. If you're into beadweaving, you've probably heard about these new rice-shaped top-drilled little beads. While they've been developed by and for bead weavers, they do work very well in all sorts of beading/jewellery making, from stringing to chain maille. As I hope to show here.

These are just my first designs: I still have beads left and hope to use them soon.

This isn't the first thing I made, but of the designs here it's the pièce de résistance. My own original design, but most of all a design where everything just fell into place. No frustration at all: no ripping up, no re-thinking the whole thing, no design issues at all (apart from choosing whether or not to add the big daggers). If only it was always like that!

sideview

I was really keeping my fingers crossed the colours would work as I picked them out at night in poor light... The preciosa rivoli is crystal honey, the rizo and seeds topaz, the 8 mm daggers crystal apricot and then I don't know the colour name of the 16 mm daggers.

This is actually the first thing I made, partially to show that the beads can be used for more than just bead weaving. It's a simple 2-in-1 chain maille bracelet with two rizos added to each jump ring. Maybe it'd look better with slightly smaller rings, but this is the only size I had. Still like it, though, and the topaz amber rizos have a ½ coat with a metallic finish that matches the rings and clasp beautifully.

Then I tried a few variations of the rizo chain, adding e. g. flower bead dangles, drops etc. However, the next design came about when I wanted to vary sizes rather than shapes. So why not add daggers? Well, it didn't turn out as planned at all as I forgot that even 11 mm daggers are too big to hang as freely and dangle as easily as e. g. rizos, drops or even long magatamas. Instead they form a much more stylized pattern. To keep that interesting new pattern still, the chain was turned into an earring rather than a bracelet.

I don't wear earrings so I'm not sure that the ideal length for this one would be. Any suggestions? Longer, shorter, as it is?

(I'm considering doing a new free tutorial for either the bracelet or the earring -- anyone want that? And if so, which of the two would you rather have instructions to? The earrings might need a little tweaking first, though...)

Last -- and least -- I made a tiny beaded bead. I'm thinking of making a handful and use them as space beads in a necklace or bracelet so it isn't a finished design, but I still wanted to show them now that I got photos of the other stuff I'm been making.

By the way: the colour used in the beaded bead and the earring is called emerald azuro and if you love jewel tones, you might want to check it out. Lovely emerald greens and metallic dark blues in that finish.


I'm going to play some more with my rizo beads today and hopefully I'll also get to work on few things with things I got in a blog partner programme (more on that later!). Then I hope to get some time to work on my first Bead Journal Project panel. So plenty of fun things to do. Don't feel like I'm on a creative roll at the moment, but I'm still being creative and that's a step in the right direction. The year seems to be beginning just fine. Not with a big, fabulous bang, but relaxed and filled with little progresses. And that's pretty decent, isn't it? Whether big or small, every step you take is a good thing. Even if it's slow, it propells you forward.

Leftovers

 
Yes, I should be working on my bead soup right now, but I'm taking a break to play with some photos. Photos of "blog hop/challenge leftovers" you might call it.

When I participate in challenges and things like that, I often start to pick out beads I think would work for the theme, palette or beads given to work with. All too often I don't have that many beads of each sort so I end up scrapping ideas based on that (or the fact I lack a matching focal). It's really all about having a really tight budget and loving colours so I rather buy a few beads of each colour or finish than enough beads of a fewer number of colours. Sometimes the lack of materials only become apparent after a while.

It can also be that I begin working with one idea in mind and then it evolves or is scrapped and I can no longer use the beads first picked out. Here are two examples of that.

These are half a dozen beaded beads I made, using marbled druks and seed beads that seemed to go perfect with the bead soup focal (also seen in the pic). It was just last weekend I finally had to give up and face the fact that while beaded beads might be a good idea, I didn't have a good idea of how to make a whole design using the beaded beads and focal. Couldn't make it work. Not with the other supplies at hand.

The other leftover is my unfinished wrap bracelet intended for yesterday's Challenge of Music. As mentioned I had to give it up when I couldn't find a focal I liked. Instead I made something else that I, in the end, quite liked. So it wasn't all bad. Even if it felt frustrating and stressful to scrap an idea in the last moment before a blog hop.

The beads are purple aventurine (sometimes called purple jade) and czech druks in frosted milky pink apollo gold. Much more subtle and earthy than the twilight colours used for the brooch/pendant that became my challenge entry.

I'm not sure whether to finish the bracelet or not, nore about what to do with the beaded beads at the moment. Right now they're somewhere between WIP and UFOs. I liked putting the beads together, though, and that's my reason for showing them here. (And also, I took the photos because I liked the beads toghether. Nothing beats purple and green.)

Twin beaded beads

Having scoured the web for twin bead projects (a post on that subject will be published on my other blog tomorrow), I had to finally get around to using my bag of  twin beads that I got weeks ago.

I felt like beginning withh some beaded beads. Forgot to print out Simone's lovely free project Twin BB so even though it was a project I wanted to do once getting the beads, I ended up with two other designs instead. The big beaded bead was inspired by a pretty design spotted on the blog Micaoldala. (That link is not just for crediting her with the initial idea, but also because I think you should check out her other lovely twin design in that blog post too.)

The design is similar in structure to "hana-ami beaded balls" -- like e.g. this one or this one -- but the 2-hole bead design mean you have to stitch it in slightly different way. Still, if you know how to make that kind of beaded beads, it shouldn't be too hard for you to figure out how to make this ball.

The smaller beaded bead was a pure experiment. I wanted to do something similar to these with five beads on each side. It didn't work as I couldn't "close" the beads in a ring on the back. So I added a third row of beads. If you look carefully you can see that it's not even: one side is flatter than the other. Makes it looks something like a small round cone (cone as in strobilus) or hops.

And that's what I've done with my twin beads so far. Not very much, but at least I can say I've tried them and don't have to feel bad about the unopened bag of beads anymore. Now I have to sketch on new ideas and add some more colours to the stash -- but it'll have to wait until I've finished the challenge entries (and possibly also a small contest entry).

Anyone else that've used the twin beads? I'd love to see some pics of what you've done with them.

A handful of beads

This is the second beaded ball I've ever made. The thing I like about it is the size: it's about 4,5 cm, making it ideal to hold in my hand and play with. To that, I've used soft "unfinished" wooden beads and matte glass drops so it feels very nice and soft to hold.

The bead is a basic 30-bead ball. After it was finished I added large drop beads to each "joint" where the thread was visible between the beads. Not only did they cover the thread, but I think they added a bit to the design as well. My reason for using large beads was to be able to use them as home décor, inspired by a cover of The Bead Book Magazine where large beaded balls made from a variety of beads were used almost like fruit, placed in a bowl.

I can't say I enjoy making these bead balls, but I kind of like them enough to probably make a few more in the future.

Beaded bead pendant tutorial

*Instruktioner på svenska finns HÄR.*

The beaded bead I've made is based on a basic right-angle weave, using a variation on a technique known as fyrkantsteknik in Sweden (read more about it here).

I'm afraid the illustrations I made for my first version of these instructions are far from perfect, but I do hope you will be able to decipher them. If you are new to this technique, you might find the basic step-by-step instructions at Bijoux en Perles to be very useful as the illustrations are much better. You will only be making one row of cross-weaving here.


To make one pendant you need:

12 square bicone glass beads, 6 mm
16 crystal bicones, 4 mm (one or two colours)
20 15/0 japanese seed beads
2 crystal bicones, 6 mm
1 headpin
Illusion cord, fishing line or Fireline

Tools: Needles if using Fireline, round-nose pliers, chain-nose pliers.


1. Making the beaded bead: Begin by cutting a 50 cm length of thread and string four square bicones on it. Centre the beads on the thread and go through the last bead on the left side with the thread in your right hand so the threads cross. Tighten the thread.



2. Keep adding beads by stringing two square bicones on your left thread, one on the right thread and cross the latter throught he second bead added on the left. Repeat and end by adding one bead to each thread. Go through the first bead with one of the threads so it ends up next to the second thread, "zipping together" the beaded bead. Make a surgeon's knot and go through the first bead with the second thread. Pull the threads to tighten the knot and slide it into the bead.

3. Now you will have two threads coming out through the square bicone, one on each side. Add 1 seed bead and 1 crystal bicone to each thread. Add 1 seed and cross the thread through it (see picture below). Add 1 bicone and 1 seed to each thread. Cross the threads through the square bicone opposite the one you exited in step 2. Pull the thread tight. You might need to push the beads towards the first square bicones for them to lay centred.

4. Repeat step 3 on the three remaining sides of the cube. After making the last crystal cross motif, go through the square bicone with only one of the threads and knot both threads together before pulling the knot into the beads as in step 2. You may want to glue the knot for extra security. Cut off excess thread.

5. Making the pendant: Add 1 6 mm bicone to a headpin, followed by the beaded bead and a second large bicone. End by making a wrapped loop (see instructions here).


To make the pendants in the first photo, I used the following colours:

Beaded bead 1
square bicones: amethyst
4 mm crystals: mat fire opal (Swarovski custom coating)
seed beads: transparent light topaz
6 mm crystals: Sun


Beaded bead 2
square bicones: smokey grey
4 mm crystals: indicolite and cataloupe
seed beads: gunmetal
6 mm crystals: rose satin

A pearl ball

This was a first try at making a puffy beaded bead along the line of the puffy hana-ami motifs I wrote about. The first pattern I came across for making these five-petal beaded beads was based on pearls rather than glass or crystal beads with seeds in between.

I used rice-shaped grey peacock FW pearls to make the doubled flower motifs and then added nugget pearls to cover the visible threads a bit. Because the thread was a bit too visible, not least since the pearls aren't perfectly uniform. Not the prettiest pearl ball, but the one that got be interested in making more hana-amipuffar.

Puffy hana-ami motifs

I don't really remember what made me start talking about this variation of hana-ami. But in doing so I inspired both myself and other beaders at a foroum to start making "hana-amipuffar". The one above is one of my favourites: note how the square bicone beads gave it a star shape.

I rather like the one below as well. This time, to vary the motif a bit, I added picots between the outer swaros. I had bought the 6 mm crystal beadss more or less by accident -- I'm not a big fan of white opal AB -- so I was quite pleased that they could be used for something.


What I like about these puffy things is that they are so versatile. You can vary the shape, size and number of beads, add embellishment and link several motifs together.

Five petals is good amount as it make the motif cupped already when making the first side, but still enough petals for it took look like a flower. You can make these with 6, 4 or 3 "petals" aswell, as shown in the photo below. More beads = flatter, fewer beads = more puffed up.



Unfortunately I don't have photos of it, but I have also made these using only round beads aswell as using FW pearls (rice and nuggets).


How to make it
If you're interested in making similar beaded beads or pendants (or whatever you think they are), I've got a few links of interest. Note that the motifs can be made in slighly different ways depending on who you ask. And while some use a single-needle method, others use double needles. I use the method described at Smyckestillverkning iFokus. Similar motifs are also made in projects at Rollendes Atelier and Beadjewelrymaking.com. Diane FitzGerald has instructions for her smaller version of them published in Beadwork Creates Beaded Beads, there called Star Flower (you can find a sample page with photo of them at her website, pdf format).

An example of how you can link together motifs can also be found here.

How to make flat hana-ami motifs can be learnt e.g. at Around the Beading Table and from Chris Prussing/Bead-Patterns.com (both free). You can also stitch together two flat hana-ami motifs like this.

I've written more about hana-ami and different variations on the stitch here.