Twin bead sampler -- and tutorial input needed

So this is, finally, the twin bead sampler, a round-up of all the little samples and swatches I've been making over the last weeks or months inbetween work, other projects and everything else needed to be done at the same time. Mostly simple designs and variations of those, nothing elaborate or fancy, really.

This post does not include any of the finished or unfinished bits and pieces I've shown earlier. The rest of my twin bead explorations can be found here.

(And if you think the pic above is a mess, with all the new and old samples all jumbled after being poured out of the plastic bag they were kept in, you should've seen what it looked like before I cut all the long thread ends!)

The tutorial

I've mentioned earlier that I want to make a new free tutorial on my blogs after the potato season. So I'd love some input on which design here you would like to see a tutorial for the most. (Preferrably not the "doubled" ones in 2-needle techniques that I haven't worked out good turns for yet or the circular ones that need some tweaking, but it can include the previously shown twin bead lace bracelet.) Every pic has a number and every variation in each pic has a letter to make it easier. Just leave a comment -- or e-mail me if you prefer that.

Most of these designs are pretty easy so they shouldn't be too hard even for a newbie, though some find 2-needle techniques a tad tricky (if possible -- and applicable -- I might throw in instructions for both 2-needle and 1-needle versions).

Twin bead samples

1. This is a close-up of the two bracelets posted before. I'm showing these manily as there will be a variation on the lace (picot) bracelet below. Also, the lace picot design is one of the designs I'm considering doing the tutorial on.

2. This was an early experiment. Basically just a peyote variation that you can see in many twin bead projects. I also tried to embellish it with beads (11/0 seeds, Preciosa and Toho, and 2 mm round metal beads). 

3. Then I also tried some sort of netting (really just like above, but with a seed bead on either side of each twin bead). Both samples are made exactly the same, though the thread tension is looser in the left sample. 


Notice what a difference it makes whether using solid colours or colour-lined beads. Ideally I would've wanted to make all samples in both, but I ran out of solid beads (therefore you'll see some really crude photo manipulation below to illustrate what a design with opaque beads might look like). 

4. My favourite technique turned out to be this one (a) that can be used for a number of different variations. You can add seeds (c) or drops (g)  or even twins (d) to the centre. In g I used Miyuki's mini drops, a perfect size -- and the shape also adds a dimensional aspect to the design. You can also add beads between the twins (e and f) and you can even add a few beads to the outside, though it didn't work as well as I hoped (it exposed more thread, not less!). The variation on the right end (after f) will be further discussed later in this post.

5. This is a few of the variations in pic. 4 made with colour-lined beads instead.

6. Ooops... No letters on this one. On the left  is another variation of the design in pic. 4. In the rest of the sample I've added tila beads to the centre the same way twin beads were added in 4d. On the far left, I've gone back and added more tilas inbetween the ones first stitched. It's tricky to see in the photo, but the tilas are overlapping (think roof tiles). 

7. A crappy manipulation that might show what the fan-shaped design in pic. 6 might look like in opaque beads. It might help if you squint your eyes while looking at it...

8. Remember the right-side end in pic. 4 where the beads changed direction? This is a continuation of that idea where I've tried some different variations. A type of design that probably looks better in solid colours. Which means I made another one of these:

9. Illustration of what pic. 8 variations might look like in opaque beads.

10. Now we're chaning tracks. These are variations of the picot or zig-zag design you can see in the lace bracelet in pic. 1. For b I just added picots to one side and single beads to the other, I then turned and worked a second row on the other side of the picots. 


For a I made picots between each twin, but insead of letting it sit on the edge, I turned it and and ran the second needle through the three beads at the top, securing the picot between the twin beads.

11. This design is stitched in 2-needle RAW and is partially inspired by metal watch bands and partially by the picot variations. On the right side I added additional rows of twins on each side.

12. Ah, this is one of my earlier samples where I tried to make ogalala butterfly stitch with twin and farfalle beads. 

13. More farfalle and twins on the right here. This is basically the same wave design that can be found in the fire-polished bead bracelet in pic. 1. The farfalles made the twist and turn -- so much that I thought it might be interesting to make this without changing directions, i.e. add the farfalles to the same side all the time to make it corkscrew.  


On the left is another RAW design in two layers. [I just realised I've forgotten the sample that inspired this variation. Darn...]

14.  And, finally, a few circular designs. The first design was just three twin beads in a row and then subsequent rows were built on that in a circular peyote type of technique. Looked pretty so-so, especially since I had problems with the thread tension. For my next variation (a) I added seeds on either side of each twin bead. 


The last sample is kind of a variation on CRAW (cubic right-angle weave) that I've been meaning to try -- without twins -- for some time. 

~*~

And that's it. Some samples better than others. Some I feel like I could do more will and develop further, others I like just how they are (and I few I probably won't try again). Some I'll redo with solid coloured beads once I buy more twins.

So... what do you think?

Another twin bracelet -- revisited

So fairly busy this weekend too -- and my camera batteries were dying, just as the sunlight behind the rain clouds -- but still wanted to show the second version of the bracelet I showed earlier this week. The size of the seed beads were perfect, but the colour scheme was slightly messy and made the actual design hard to see so last night, before falling asleep, I made a new version using bronze-lined twin beads, golden seed beads and crystal rose topaz luster fp (apparently I did have a third colour in that size! Who knew...).

Because I used a different size seed beads, I had to alter the number of beads for each "wave". Below, you can see my trial strip. The first second (without fire-polished beads) was made using three seeds on each side, just like I used in the first bracelet, which fit perfectly with the fp's. Here it didn't work at all. So then I tried five seeds per side/wave -- because I prefer odd numbers and primes to even numbers -- which resulted in a really wavy pattern. So, lastly, I tried something in between and that is the version I stuck with for the final bracelet. The "five seeds waves" would probably work better if I used round beads instead of fire-polished, which -- despite the name (they are called round -- aren't fully spherical.

WIP: another twin bracelet

Actually, I'm slightly too busy to be blogging today, but I wanted a break and I've had fun doing a new bracelet (still in progress) that I wanted to show.

This is another really simple pattern. My own, evolving from trial and error, but probably not unique as I just let the shape of the beads determine the design. Beads as usual a mix of what I had at hand: seeds and twins from the prize I won and fp from my own stash (this and light hyacinth was the only colours I had in the right colour -- size or colour, you can't get both...) It's not finished, but at this point I began thinking about different directions the design could take: should I add the fire-polished beads as intended or leave it "bare" or just add beads to one side? The last alternative would probably be better for a collar/choker necklace than a bracelet.

Here's a really crummy pic of what the bracelet looks like lying flat. You can see the different design options I mentioned, from beads on both sides to no beads.

I'm also thinking about how different the design would look if I had used fully coloured beads instead of colour-lined. The lining makes it look almost like an open space in the middle. Just as in the lace bracelet I showed earlier. It would be fun to make a second bracelet using coloured beads too, just to see the difference. In such a bracelet the shape of the twin beads would be more visible instead of the meandering line that is the main focus of the design here.

A different colour combo would also make a huge difference. What would happen if the seeds and twins were the same colour? Or if using different colours of fp? Or just a huge "confetti" bead soup? All interesting questions, but I'm not sure I've got the right size, colour and amount of beads to try many variations at the moment.

Funny, looking at the pics, I almost think it looks like those herringbone "wave" bracelets. But much simple (at least for a newbie) as it's mostly stringing, not stitching.

Anyway, feedback always appreciated. Which version do you like best? And what do you think of the design overall?

Twin bead lace bracelet

Curious to see something I've made with the Preciosa Ornela loot I won? Here's a bracelet I made when playing around with different ideas and designs for the twin beads. Originally I was sceptical of the crystal colour-lined beads, thinking I'd prefer solid colours or finishes, but in this design it turned out that the lining was a perfect way to get both colour and the illusion of open space along the "spine" of the bracelet.

For this bracelet, I used a very simple 2-needle technique. I would've wanted the twin beads to form more or a zig-zag pattern and will try to make some variations with bigger beads (bicones?), but in the end it looks good this way too. (I must say, I think it looks better IRL, being so sheer in colour and dainty in design, which the photo doesn't really do justice too.)

As so often there's no clasp yet. I'm looking for a nice, small one that'll fit and I find shopping for findings much more boring that going bead hunting so there aren't that many clasps to chose from in my stash...

If you wonder about the photo, it's taken with the bracelet put around a tapered beer glass. I find it's often a good bracelet display for photos as it's a) tapered so it works with many different bracelet sizes and b) clear. A bonus with the later is that you can always see the back of the bracelet too.

The actual photo set-up is a bit different from usual as the sunny days (even today when we good the most gorgeous sun shower) mean it's perfect to rig everything in front of the south-facing window at my sister's workbench. As you can see below. Not exactly very professional looking, putting the set-up on my sis's newly-sewn seeds (she just warned me to do it again today as the seeds are beginning to sprout), but it's the best access to natural light I have indoors and the colours and sparkle is so much better when using the sun rather than construction lights to light up jewellery and beads.

Czech bead mail

Yesterday I got a message from the Post telling me I had to pick up a parcel. Noticing the country code on the slip (which never tells you who the actual sender is), I immediately knew what it was. It was difficulte to wait a whole day before being able to pick it up. Because it was of cause bead mail. From the Czech Republic and Preciosa Ornela.

This is the fab autumn-coloured loot I won at Pearl's blog (The Beading Gem's Journal). Crappy pics, but what can I say? I was so excited, I just had to share some pics the instant I got home. You can click on the pics for close-ups if you want to see more detail.

The bags of seed beads in different sizes also included twin beads and farfalles. A lovely mix of metallic, colour-lined and topaz coloured beads I can't wait to use. My one and only bag of twin beads is running low so the timing was perfect -- now I even have multiple colours of twins.

And then there was a big bag of pressed glass beads too. I'm going to sort them soon so I can get a good overview of what's in that pile. Lots of shapes and colours, including some I hadn't seen before. Yum!

It was not just beads. I also got a nifty beaded pencil and pen with seed beads in (a few of them striped, my latest "seed bead colour obsession" as it happens!). And I got a folder, which is also exciting to a hoarder/collector/colour addict beader like me because it contained colour charts and also other goodies like a bead size chart, project instructions, a leaflet about their bead shop etc. And it makes a very useful source of reference material for bead bloggers like me.

If you know me, you know that about 1/3 of my bead stash is seed beads (incl. shapes like drops, twin, tila etc), 1/3 are Czech beads (seeds and some Preciosa crystal, but mostly pressed glass and fire-polished) and 1/3 is a mix of everything else. So not only did I win beads, which is really fab in itself, but also beads in a colour scheme I like and, above all: it's czech beads! (And info about czech beads, which is also great for a bead nerd/"bead colour collector" like me even if it might sound strange to be so pleased about getting promotional material.)

I'm so thrilled about this prize -- I won a jackpot and I'm so happy for it! Thank you so much, Pearl and Preciosa Ornela, for doing this giveaway! *happy dance*

Twin bead update

I'm being a very prolific blogger this week. Today I just wanted to write a short note, showing this tweaked version of the twin bead "flower" I showed in this post. As we're talking very small be you can see the piece in more of a natural scale below.

Adding 15/0 seeds to the inner circle too make a huge difference. Much more even and the design just generally looks more even and well made. Even in this unflattering photo it looks so much better than before. Compare with the first version below.

Need I say more? I liked the pentagon shape in the first version, but it just didn't look good. With the right colours and worked into a bigger motif/design it might still work. Haven't tried that yet. But all in all I think the new version is an improvement.

And now I just have to make something with these little motifs. Just don't hold your breaths, I've got several projects that I need to finish first so it'll take some time before I can present a finished piece of work...

Seed bead cravings

Have you seen my latest pinboard, Seed bead colours? If you follow my blog you know that one of the reasons glass beads are my favourite material to work with is that there are so many colours and finishes -- and I just want them all!

Having done some beaded beads, bead embroidery for TAST and now finally picked up my twin beads, I'm really craving some new seed bead colours. Like a true bead junkie. It's not like I don't have any seed beads, though my collection is probably far from as complete as some may think, but when I see a new colour I can't help but drool and think I must have it!

Gilded Marble Turquoise, Magic Raspberry, Opaque Olive Jade Picasso with Brown and Gray Stripes, Opaque Water Colors Half Coat Apollo Gold, Ancient Matt Snowcloud, Opaque Green Lined Montana Blue, Gold-Lustered Amethyst, Inside Color Lined Gray/Copper -- how can colours (and colour names) like that not be irresistable?

And with all the options, I find myself fascinated with one finish or type of colour at the time. It used to be picasso and opal colours. Before that celsian and lustre finish on opaque colours. Before that matte metallics and frosted vitrail. And Hybrids of cause. Right now I'm very curious about colour-lined and striped seeds.

Unfortunately, I can't really afford buying beads right now eventhough it's so tempting for a seed bead addict to just whip out the ol' Visa and order all those gorgeous colours. So right now I'm restricted to online window shopping only...

Daydreaming about all the colours and finishes I will buy one day. But rarely daydreaming about what I want to make with them... As I've said many times before, I'm a collector and hoarder so it's more about falling in love with colours than thinking they'd look fab in my beadwork.

Do you have a favourite seed bead colour you think I'd like? Please, do tell. With a link or just the colour name. I'd love some new colours ideas to toy with. And we all know some colours are much lovelier IRL and therefore easy to miss when just looking through the shops online like I do.

(The photo's of some czech seed beads in travertine, a picasso finish. It's a kind of note to myself to keep my eyes out for when the new picasso finish beads from Miyuki hits the market -- check out the colours in their online sample cards. They can be found in the Process category.)

Twin "flowers"

I've been playing a little more with my twin beads. Once again I started out with a circle of five beads as the shape lends itself well to circular patterns. Looking at the gap between the beads, I thought a bicone would be a good shape to fill it out. So I got out som frosted 4 mm crystals and began stitching. This is the result of my first trial.


I'm not sure exactly were I want to go with the design, but after three sections/flowers, I have a decision to make:

If I keep adding sections/flowers to the bicone next to the top middle one, the five-petal design will make the whole think curve, forming a semi-circle -- and eventually turn around, making a complete circle, if I continue in the same direction. This curve would look great as a necklace focal or I could make a necklace using multiple semi-circles, creating a scalloped design.

If I alternate how I add the flowers, I can make a sort of meandering, but straight vine. Perfect for e.g. bracelets. It's leaning towards this option at the moment.

I then wanted to try making the same design with 3 mm bicones to see how it'd look. A tiny bit too small it seems: you get more of a gap between crystal and twin bead, exposing the thread in a less than pleasing way.

But it works if you pull the thread hard, creating a domed shape.

What about adding 15/0 seeds on either side of the crystal bead to fill the gaps then? A bit too much as you can see. Well, unless you want a bit of a scalloped edge, which is nice too, of cause. It was also tricky to get even, but maybe it'd look better if adding more sections so they'd stabilise each other. (For my next version I'll add 15/0s between the twin beads at the inner hole too. Tried doing it afterwards in this version, but failed as it was too tight in some spots so the seeds wouldn't fit between the twins.)

And that's about as far as I've come, playing with my twin beads. If you've missed them, you can find my first twin beaded beads here.

My next twin project will probably be some sort of beaded bezel. Having made a tila-bezelled rivoli, twin would be the next step. Maybe I'll do some embroidery too. Pattern darning with twins and tilas? Could make it part of this week's TAST challenge, which is darning/running stitch.

I've also got some thrifted, partially broken, leucaena seed necklaces that could prove to be inspirational. The beads are often 2-hole and while flat, the shape is still somewhat similar to the twin bead.

PS! If you came here looking for twin bead patterns, check out Preciosa Ornela's website and/or my post on twin bead projects.

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.

Bezelled crystals

For weeks and months now, I just haven't had much inspiration or energy to bead. Then a few days before Christmas I just had to participate in Noora's colour challenge at Inspira. I got the combo midnight blue, wine and bronze to work with. Nothing I use very often, but still not too far out, which meant less of a chance that I'd give up and yet again feel like a failure. After rummaging through my stash, I also found beads in the right colours that would work together: custom coated Swarovski rivoli in rose sphinx, 4 mm fp in garnet topaz luster (that was the closest I had to wine, and much darker than in my photo) plus some medium bronze Delicas and a few 15/0 bronze seeds.

I've never tried to bead a bezel using beads as large and cylinder-shaped as the 10/0 Delicas, which explains why it's a bit uneven. It was my first try and in retrospect I can see several things I'd do different. But seeing how this piece was responsible to giving me back the yearning to bead, I don't want to redo it. Unfortunatley, both garnet topaz luster and rose sphinx are hopeless colours to photograph in this combination so I'm a bit disappointed at how crummy the pendant looks here...

Anyway, bezelling is addictive so when I'd finished this one I just had to make one more, trying different beads and bead counts as well as embellishments. And then one more and one more and...

'I don't use bugle beads that often because I'm afraid they'll cut my thread, but sometimes I just have to use them as the shape alters the look of a piece considerable compared to using multiple seeds to acheive the same lenght. This is Alchemy mk III and I'm afraid I never got any pics of the first two incarnations. At first I used just 3 mm bugles for the RAW strip, but it got too wide. For the second version I used two 11/0s as "spokes", but that was not much shorter than using bugles so for the final version I just used one 11/0 and suddenly it fit perfectly. I was soo pleased.

Pity I used my 16 mm Alchemy rivoli (by Preciosa) as the black bugles (the only 3 mm bugles I have) blend with the crystal. But you can see the structure of the bezel better on the flipside. I never planned on keeping this so I didn't bother too much about choosing colours. After being pleased about the result I actually got a bit annoyed at not choosing different colours as the bezel turned out so good I didn't want to rip it...

This bronze bezel capturing a 14 mm Preciosa rivoli in crystal Marea shows the structure of my basic RAW bezel very well. I don't do peyote bezels as many other do as I don't get along with that stitch, but I love RAW/cross-weaving and netting. I really like RAW bezels for two reasons: a) they are so easy to make and alter to fit the stone in question and b) they form a base that's perfect to embellish in different ways.

This one isn't embellished as I'm planning on using it stitched to a pendant and don't want it too "frilly". At least not before I've worked more on the details of the design. I've used 13/0 charlottes for this bezel.

For this little charm or pendant, I didn't use a rivoli but a pointed-back foiled crystal, I was given in a secret santa swap just before Christmas. I wanted to use drops, inspired by Beadsmania, and due to the size of the crystal (perhaps 14 mm across) I choose Miyuki's new 2,8 mm drops and 13/0 (blueish) hematite charlottes. Another pic I'm not pleased with: the shape of the bezel looks wonky, but it really isn't IRL...

Back to rivolis. Once again, I just wanted to test a design and had to make due with what I had so I ended up using a 16 mm crystal volcano rivoli and metallic purple 11/0 seeds (japanese). This is the same typ of embellishment I used in my first bezel, but this time only using seeds. I also added bows of seeds around the bezel.

For this one I did just as before, using 15/0 japanese seeds, but here it's a vintage Swarovski stone that's a bit different. It's oval and it has a totally flat, not pointy, front while still being pointedback. #2102 if you want to look them up. Here, I embellished the front just as bove, using three beads on each bow. A bit of a pesky shape, not because it's oval, but because the girth is thicker on the two sides than at the narrow ends. But not so much of a problem that it shows on the front.

The latest version of my RAW bezels is this one I made today. I used Toho 11/0 seeds in copper-lined topaz. A shiny warm, golden tones that looks strange in this photo and more transparent than IRL. I also added 10/0 Czech seeds in copper-lined light olivine to match the pretty olivine stone. This is the same type of pointedback crystal I used in the grey pendant before, from the same secret santa.

The strip is slightly too short so the beads cover much of the crown, but I choose not to redo it, fearing that it'd be too loose if I added another section of RAW. The gaps between the beads, which you can see in the pic, aren't really visible IRL. Once again, I embellished the front with row of three beads (1 topaz, 1 olivine, 1 topaz) and then, as in the purple pendant, I added two-coloured rows around the bezel. This time I wanted to use picots in some way. I like working with picots. So I combined picots and rows, alternating between the two, after figuring only picots wouldn't look as nice as when combined with bows of beads between them.

I've already shown my tila bezel here, but as it was part of my rivoli bezelling obsession, it has a place here as well. I've tried to arrange the bezels in the order they were made, but this one was probably made first or at least after finish my challenge piece. This isn't made in RAW as the once above. The method here is more like stringing. And I keep repeating myself: I just have one colour of tilas and had to make due with a shrinking stash of rivolis so there wasn't much room to choose colours that'd look fab together. Besides, I wasn't even sure it'd work and thought I'd just rip it and return the stone to the stash afterwards. But I think I'm keeping it...

Like with my tila beads, I'm soon running out of rivolis and crystals to bezel. It's just so addicitive! I even had to stop myself from making more basic bezels before I ran out of stone to try different embellishment designs on.

So there we have it: I'm beading again. That is, beading for real and thinking about designs. But I soon have to buy more beads and stones if I keep this up. Having flow can be oh so expensive (and not being able to buy much needed/wanted supplies can be frustrating and throw me back into the bead block). But right now I focus on the important part: I'm beading again!