Floret Earrings and Charms with Modified Prismatic Right Angle Weave PRAW

Learn to make Floret Earrings and Necklace with this original variation on Modified Prismatic Right Angle Weave (MPRAW). This version of MPRAW is like Modified RAW described in Contemporary Geometric Beadwork, and other beading patterns. This tutorial is written for intermediate beaders who want to learn more about right angle weave (RAW). Knowledge of cubic RAW or modified RAW is recommended.

This tutorial includes detailed instructions for making the Floret Earrings and the matching necklace with of tiny pendants with matching beaded beads. Everything uses Japanese seed beads in two different sizes with the addition of other small round, roundel and/or bicone beads. They are a wonderful way to small amounts of leftover seed beads and other small one-hole beads.

Each floret is 11/16 inch wide (12 mm) and almost an inch tall (23 mm). They’re small and light, making them comfortable to wear as earrings.

The tutorial is detailed including 15 colorful pages, with 110 full color illustrations and photographs. The tutorial gives detailed illustrations, photographs, and written instructions to make the Floret Earrings and matching necklace.

 Thanks for looking!

Marsala Beaded Bead Necklace

This necklace features Pantone's 2015 Color of the Year, Marsala with aquamarine blue and titanium gray.

It includes 8 beaded beads: 5 Nuts & Washers, a Cube Cluster, an Octahedral Cluster, and a Conway Bead. I carefully selected 7 lampwork glass beads to make the strand into an asymmetric, yet perfectly balanced strand of beads. That's 15 beads in all. Together they make a pallet that is rich and earthy, sophisticated, and oh-so in fashion.

They're all strung on a yard of blue cord of pure silk that I twisted and plied on my spinning wheel.

It includes almost 6 inches (15 cm) of beads. Largest beaded bead measures almost an inch (23 mm).  Thanks for looking!

Nuts and Washers Beaded Beads Necklace in Red Orange Black Silver with Lampwork Glass

For this whimsical necklace, I made 7 beaded beads, including 5 Beaded Nuts and Washers, a Rainbow Twist, and a Conway Bead.

Then, I added 5 borosilicate and lampwork glass beads torched by 5 different artists. Together they make a pallet of red, black and silver, with a bit of orange and yellow.

 This is an unusual and strand of beads, eclectic yet harmonious. 

This strand of beaded beads is for sale.  Click on the photos to go to the listing.

Thanks for looking!

New Tutorial - Nuts and Washers: 4 Easy Beaded Beads with Peyote Stitch

Here are some photos from my newest tutorial.  Beaded Nuts and Washers are flat beaded beads with large holes.

Although they can be worn alone, I designed them to be companion beads to go with large round beaded beads. My favorite look is when you add handmade lampwork glass beads, and string them simply on a piece of silk cord, like this:

Four gallery pages show five sets of nuts and washers in different color schemes matched with other beads to show you how a few nuts and washers can turn a single beaded bead into a beautiful eclectic necklace.

Beading nuts and washers is fast and easy. You only need a few pinches of each bead color, making this a good choice to use up your leftover seed beads from other projects.

Gather together all of your 8°, 11°, and 15° in a few related colors, and start beading!

This pattern is suitable for beginning bead weavers and includes a few tips to get you started.

The tutorial is 15 pages, including over 80 illustrations and photographs. The tutorial is an instant download PDF file that gives charts and explanations for reading the charts to make Nuts and Washer beaded beads in four sizes including mini beaded beads. Materials lists are included. Here you can see the whole tutorial.

 Thanks for looking!

Conway Bead Variation with Tiny Drops

I've been fiddling with the sizes of the beads using my my newest tutorial, Conway Bead.   This version of the Conway Bead uses tiny drop beads instead of some of the seed beads, but otherwise, it's the same as what's written in the tutorial, including the O-bead embellishment. This ornate cluster is composed of nearly 400 beads. It is very round and hollow and has a very appealing squish to it. It's quite soft and springy without being droopy. The shape reminds me of a virus.

This beaded bead is 25 mm (1 inch) in diameter, suitable for a focal bead on a necklace. There are a couple of different ways to string this, and the largest hole is big, 4 mm wide, wide enough to accommodate a thick cord or chain.

 It's for sale in the Beaded Beads Section of my Etsy shop.

Thanks for looking!

TUTORIAL Conway Bead Beaded with Tetrahedrons and Prisms

I just posted my newest beaded bead pattern.   I'm calling it the Conway Bead.  I named after the great mathematician John Horton Conway in honor of his extensive work on symmetry, especially four dimensional polytopes, on which this piece is based. This particular design is taken from the 03-ambo polydodecahedron.  (Say that ten times fast!)  Alicia Boole Stott discovered this shape last century, along with a bunch of other 4D polytopes, built models of them in paper, and wrote about them.  I didn't bead the whole thing, just a small piece of it.

Although it might sound complicated from that introduction, the structure of this thing is actually quite elegant.  Once you get the hang of it, it's quite intuitive, and my tutorial is designed to give you that intuition.  It's beaded much like cubic right angle weave but with tetrahedrons and prisms instead of cubes.  This tutorial is designed for experienced beaders, and it includes charts like those found on my blog here. This tutorial assumes you already how to do cubic right angle weave and know how to connect two ends to make a continuous strip. If you don’t, check out the links here to learn how.

You should also probably already know how to bead a dodecahedron or at least know what a dodecahedron is before trying this design.   This is a dodecahedron.

One of the things I like about this structure is that it has large holes that run through its center so you can easily string it on chain or cord.

Another thing I like about this beaded bead is that the underlying structure comes from something that is four dimensional.  If you were to try to build the whole structure with bugle beads, it wouldn't work because the angles don't actually match up precisely.  Even the little piece I beaded probably wouldn't work.  It's close, but not exact.  But because seed beads are short and bead weaves are flexible, you just have to be close.  So bead weaving makes it possible to build a little chunk of this 4D thing in 3D, thereby making the impossible just unlikely.  Thanks for looking.