SuperDuos and Hiding Thread

I recently published a new tutorial for my "Night Out on the Town" Necklace and inside it I revealed a trick for hiding thread when creating a beaded rope using SuperDuos.

Most everyone knows that when using SuperDuos, you somehow need to get from the bottom hole to the top hole of the bead in order to connect it to other beads.  There are two methods for accomplishing this.

Method 1 - The most common way is to pass the thread along the side of the SuperDuo that the thread is exiting and then pass through the top hole. 

This method will cause the thread to move in the opposite direction around the circle when adding the next beads.  The thread can be seen along the edge of the SuperDuo.  

There is nothing wrong with the above technique. In fact, there really is no other way to do it when beading flat bead work (like a bracelet).  But as I was beading my rope, I really didn't like seeing the thread laying on the side of the bead.   

It suddenly dawned on me that I could hide the thread!  So here is the method for hiding the thread when creating a rope.

 Method 2 -  Instead of going up the same side of the SuperDuo that the thread is exiting, move the thread across the “back/inside edge” of the SuperDuo and pass through the hole of the SuperDuo on the opposite side from where the thread is exiting. 

When the SuperDuo beads are pulled together into a circle forming the rope, the inside of the SuperDuo where the thread passed over will not show.  It will be on the inside of the rope and you will continue to add beads in the same direction each time. 

This also works for making Beaded Beads which are explained in my Night Out On the Town  necklace Tutorial which can be purchased in my Etsy shop.

As always, I wish you Happy Beading!

Taming the Long Magatamas

I love long magatama beads, but their wonky hole and odd shape can make them a bit difficult to use with the common beadweaving stitches.

  

The holes go through the beads at a slant so they don't sit all nice and neat like cylinder or seed beads.

But still, I wanted to use them and like a design challenge.  I found they play pretty nicely using the spiral stitch so I created a pair of earrings.

The long magatama beads are the white beads that spiral gently down around a center core of size 8 seed beads.

Somewhere along my beading journey, I learned a trick to tighten up a spiral stitch so that the beads don't hang all willy nilly.  I experimented with my earrings and discovered that with a small change, I could tighten up the magatamas and really show the spiral effect.

I've created a tutorial for the earrings as well as a matching bracelet and have now listed it in my Etsy shop.

I hope you'll give the long magatamas a try!  Happy Beading!