Meshing Duo Beads Together

I have recently seen some examples of super-duo beads meshed together in a herringbone pattern, which forms a wide strip e.g. for a bracelet. (What a mathematician might call tiling a plane). This set me thinking that there may be other ways to 'tile' with duo beads, so that they form a flat surface, maybe with an occasional seed bead to fill a hole.
I also have some large spherical haematite beads in need of a project. These spherical beads are 10 mm diameter and coloured gold. They looked like they needed radiating beads to make them into little sunbursts, or maybe sunflowers, but how to mesh them together?
This leads to all sorts of odd numbers problems, for example, if you have to mesh 2 beads, they will need 3 beads to mesh into.
The solution was to use 9 beads onto each round bead, and to work down one side, and then up the other, linking into the first row as you go. Just a couple of seed beads were needed to fill the holes, and even out the pattern. The finished result is very pleasing, especially because there are a correct number of pattern repeats to fit my wrist!

Spot the join! 

I love it when I am able to design a clasp that exactly matches the design of the piece. In this case there are two of the round beads to fit into the two holes. I used two, to make it safer, as spherical buttons are not very secure!

This is a very chunky, dramatic bracelet, which is not for everyone, I know, so I'm going to make a variation that uses smaller rounds, or possibly crystals. Also I really want to see if I can expand the pattern to have three rows of round beads.

Meanwhile in the same vein I designed a very simple  bracelet, with some of the same ideas. 

Called "Little 'O's Bracelet", it is a chain of meshed circles. You can find the tutorial here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/177433249/tutorial-for-little-o-bracelet?

Stop press! I just realized that it would be much better with "crystalettes"  in a few of the 'O's.

Little 'O's bracelet, with Crystalettes.

Fun, fun, fun, there's so much you can do with super-duo beads!

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Evolution of a Design

Today I just wanted to tell you how a design evolves, one thing leads to another, and that leads to a whole new design!

In my last blog I spoke about the rivoli pendant captured with pellet beads (No 1.). I also found that peanut beads share a property with pellet beads, that of having a 'groove' that will hold onto the edge of a rivoli when joined correctly, and they come in two sizes.

The next thing that I made was a rivoli surrounded by large peanut beads (No 2.). The round ends of the peanut beads reflect the light in a very satisfactory way when placed in this orientation, with the round end up.

My third effort was to use pellet beads, but to add extra rounds of peanut beads, large, then smaller ones. This design, though pretty is a little unstable at the edges, so I'm not completely happy with it. This is probably because there are too many beads for the space, on the outer round.

My next two are the ones on the Nottingham bead show entry. One being a pellet bead rivoli, and the other being the 'splash' which is two rows of the smallest peanut beads.

I had a eureka moment when I realized that because the concentric circles get bigger moving out from the centre, it would make sense to use the smallest beads in the middle, and the largest beads on the outside. And so the 'Waterlily' pendant was created (No 4.). This is my new favourite!

A few weeks ago I had been looking at possibilities for 'Rulla' beads. I wanted to make some small elements for modular beadwork (i.e. where lots of elements are made, then joined into a final design later).

I came across these again, and realized that the design is much better suited to peanut beads, as this design makes no use of the second hole in the rulla bead. Also that these flowers can be made with various numbers of petals. Then if I make a seven petalled flower, will a 8mm rivoli fit in the middle?

Well there was some experimentation, and I could not make the rivoli stay, but when I used the previous method of securing the rivoli, and then built up the petals afterwards, I had a nice little shiny flower.

Lots of little flowers later, with two, three, four five and six petals,  and a couple of rivoli centred flowers, and there's a new design, 'Lacy Flowers'

A pair of lacy flowers will also make a lovely pair of earrings, and I hope to make a necklace with a network of flowers all joined into a big triangle.

Its nice when one thing leads to another, and the result is so pretty!