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!

Innuendo - Metal Beads and Swarovski Bling

A while back (ok, many months ago), I finished a new bracelet I called Rhapsody.  I used 24k gold plated metal beads to create a right angle weave base and added some Swarovski bicone crystal embellishment on top.

I had every intention of making my Rhapsody bracelet in silver and then creating a tutorial showing them in both colorways.  Somehow during the beading, the plans changed and I ended up with a simpler bracelet.  It uses the same techniques, same right angle weave base and craw embellishment, but there are some differences I'm sure you can see.  I omitted the diamond cluster of crystals in the middle of the bracelet and those going down the sides.  I used round vitrail crystals in the same grouping of four down the center of the bracelet.  Here's how it turned out.

 

Since I'm a silver kind of girl, I like the silver one best.  I created a tutorial for it and the Innuendo pattern is now available in my Etsy shop.

 

I also sell the size 8 silver plated metal beads and the Elegant Elements clasp used in the project. 

 

 

If you like the gold one best and you know cubic right angle weave, it would be very easy to add the extra embellishment.  Whichever you like best, I hope they inspire you to create something today.

 

Happy Beading! 

Crochet Ribbons Bracelet Tutorial

Seems like forever since I've been able to design and create a new bracelet tutorial.  I just listed this new bracelet pattern in my Etsy shop.  It's a very easy pattern using 3-drop peyote stitch.