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Beaded bead - an alien flying saucer


Last Monday, I talked about the beautiful jeweled egg-shaped beads (shown below) featured in the April 2016 issue of Bead&Button magazine.  With those instructions as my starting point, I worked out my own beaded bead...except it looks more like a flying saucer and less like an egg!

Fatima Mensen-Potter's beaded beads

The wooden bead that I started with was quite different from the barrel beads that Fatima used, so I knew that my bead count and even the sizes of many beads would be different.  Fatima starts off in the center with a band of RAW, and then proceeds to add peyote and netting stitches on either side to form the rest of the bead.  I also started with RAW and added the cute diagonal stitches as embellishment that you see in her beads.  But from then on, I stuck with peyote stitch, varying the size and number of beads to suit the shape of my wooden core.
If you decide to try doing this, I've got a few tips for you:



  • To get started, make a band of RAW in larger beads (size 6/0 seed beads, for example).  Make it just a bit shorter than you will need to encircle the wooden form.
  • Place a piece of double-sided tape around the middle to hold the beadwork lightly in place at first.  You can see the tape in the image above.  Then add the last stitch or two of RAW to finish up the band.
  • I found it helpful to work on both sides of the central band, alternating a bit, rather than stitching all of one side first and then stitching the second.  It helped me to keep the tension more even, and helped me to figure out when I could removed the tape before it became trapped!
  • Use several rows of size 11/0 or size 15/0 seed beads to finish off each end.  


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Copyright 2016 Cyndi Lavin. All rights reserved. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

Comments

Eileen Bergen said…
What a gorgeous color combo you chose, Cyndi. It's awesome that you can just adjust a pattern to suit different size materials. Good tips.
Cyndi L said…
LOL!! Thanks Eileen...some patterns and stitches are definitely easier to adjust than others :-)