Índex per 1 April 2015 a Bead&Button

I may have mentioned before that I love surprises, especially of the beady variety. Well, every so often I come across a design that stops me in my tracks and makes me say, “How did she do that?!” Diane Hertzler’s fabulous cover bangle is one of those, because at first glance it appears to be a lovely, if basic, peyote bracelet. But look a little closer and you’ll see that the inside is different than the outside, which has never happened with any of the peyote bands I’ve made. That’s because Diane built this piece with a special surprise — a unique twist she calls “quilted peyote.” Give her technique a try, and revel in the exclamations of delight from all your bead buddies when they see your handiwork. There…

Tip One of the least popular tasks in beading is ending and adding threads — no one likes all that pesky knotting! To avoid having to sew loose ends into your beadwork when adding a new thread, try using the weaver’s knot. (1) To work the weaver’s knot, make a slipknot at the end of the piece of thread you’re going to add: Make a loop a few inches from the end of the thread. Pass part of the tail through the loop to make a new loop. Pull very tight. (2) Pass the end of the old thread through the slipknot, and without touching the old thread, tighten the slipknot in the new thread until you hear it click. Don’t pull any tighter. (3) Attach your needle to the…

Original piece The focal area in the original necklace by Bead&Button editor Julia Gerlach (below) is formed by five lampwork beads separated by silver spacers. Two silver cones attach the kumihimo rope foundation. The color palette is a complementary harmony based on red and green. The design here is functional and solid. But rather than singing, the necklace only quietly hums. We want a necklace that sings a glorious song. The main problem with this piece is a weak visual hierarchy in the focal area — the main beads and their spacers. All five beads are relatively the same size, and when viewed as a whole, nothing stands out as a focal point. My eyes make a beeline for the red beads on either side of the center bead because…

Master beader Nancy Cain has a secret she loves to share: Row three of peyote is all about the tension, and the tension is all about the tail thread. In row three, beaders tend to relax the thread by letting it go, perhaps after adding a stop bead, and that allows the tension to loosen, Cain says. “When peyote twists and the beads rotate to the inside, when you don’t have enough back tension, you are weaving under the base thread. The beads are following that thread papath to the inside,” she explains. The non-dominant hand — not just the stitching hand — and the tail thread control tension, says Cain. When the beader pulls too tight with the lead thread and the tail thread tension relaxes, the beadwork begins…

Each cubic right-angle weave (or CRAW) unit has six surfaces — four sides, a top, and a bottom. Each surface is made up of four beads, but since the beads are shared, 12 beads are used to make the first unit, and only eight beads are used for each subsequent CRAW unit. For clarity, we used two colors of beads in the how-to photos. Working the first CRAW unit 1 On the specified length of thread, pick up four beads. Tie the beads into a ring with a square knot, leaving the specified length tail, and continue through the first two beads in the ring. This ring of beads will count as the first stitch of the unit. 2 Work two right-angle weave stitches off of the bead your thread…

THREAD AND KNOTS Conditioning thread Use beeswax or microcrystalline wax (not candle wax or paraffin) or Thread Heaven to condition nylon beading thread and Fireline. Wax smooths nylon fibers and adds tackiness that will stiffen your beadwork slightly. Thread Heaven adds a static charge that causes the thread to repel itself, so don’t use it with doubled thread. Both conditioners help thread resist wear. To condition, stretch nylon thread to remove the curl (you don’t need to stretch Fireline). Place the thread or Fireline on top of the conditioner, hold it in place with your thumb or finger, and Ending and adding thread To end a thread, sew back through the last few rows or rounds of beadwork, following the thread path of the stitch and tying two or three…

Large bezel 1 On 2 yd. (1.8 m) of thread, pick up four color A 110 metal seed beads, and sew through all the beads again. Continue through the next three As to form a ring, leaving a 10-in. (25 cm) tail (figure 1, a–b). 2 Working in right-angle weave (RAW), pick up three As, sew through the A your thread exited at the start of this step, and continue through the first two As picked up in this step (b–c). Repeat this stitch for a total of 18 stitches. 3 To join the strip into a ring: Pick up an A, and sew through the first A added in step 1 (figure 2, a–b). Pick up an A, and sew through the A your thread exited at the start…

A new generation of two-hole shapes has taken the beading community by storm. Magazines and books brim with projects that showcase two-hole versatility. Beaders are abuzz about the smoothness of the two-hole beads and have flipped for the security of a second anchor point. “Two-hole beads have moved from curiosity to concept, and onto an art form of their own,” says Nichole Starman (above left), product manager at Starman Beads. She should know; she has played a large role in bringing them to the beading industry. Before marrying into the family, Nichole remembers being blown away by beads on her first visit to the Starman bead warehouse. She and her future husband, Dave, had moved from Idaho to Southern California to attend business school. One weekend, they drove to the…