Stashbusting Project Idea - Bead Soup Rings.

We have all got them lurking about at the bottom of drawers or bead boxes, those almost finished tubes of beads with just a gram or so of seed beads in, just a little bit too much to throw out, but not quite enough to make anything with. This week I have been on a mission to clear out these tubes by making bead soups and stitching them up into wide peyote rings with a button focal bead.

The pink, cream and gold ring was the 1st I made and has just the 3 colours, but still works out quite nicely. The proportions can be tricky, don't use the same amounts for all colours, I found this looked a little odd and not random enough. The purple ring has 6 different shades and finishes. The brown button ring has brown as the main colour in the mix with beige and 2 different shades of gold.

I found that having one shade as the main colour (at least 50% of the finished mix) worked well and then add different amounts of related colours in different shades and finishes. One of my most successful mixes was a blue one with 6 closely related shades of teal and blue, each one a different finish, it stitched up really nicely too.

Once I had my mix I then stitched up the rings using 2 drop peyote stitch, these are 12 beads wide. I then zipped them up and added a focal.

Great little stashbusters and I think if you made them wider and longer, they would make great napkin rings!

Happy beading,

Sarahx

Pattern Finds - Mad Rings 2 by Heather Collin and a Treat!

Happy Wednesday!

I'm excited to introduce a new feature to OTTBS, Pattern Finds. I love to search the web to find unusual beadwork patterns and tutorials from indie designers and thought that it would be fun to share them here with the hopes that it will inspire us all to try new designs and techniques, use up our bead stash and also promote the designers.

We are kicking the new feature off with a real treat from Heather Collin of Beading Patterns by Heather. The Mad Rings 2 pattern really drew my eye when I was browsing on Etsy! The beautiful, bright colours are bold and modern, the design is intricate and it's one heck of a statement ring! How could I not love it at first sight?

As a special treat for OTTBS readers Heather is offering a discount of 50% on the Mad Rings 2 Pattern! The discount code is TTBS2, thank you so much to Heather for making the 1st Pattern Finds extra special with her generosity!



Isn't it beautiful? Please go visit Heather's shop and have a look at all her beautiful patterns, but please remember that the discount code applies only to the Mad Rings 2 design and not any other patterns in the shop.

I will be starting my ring tonight! I recently bought some peacock style colours of delica's and have been looking for the right pattern for them, I think this will be perfect! There are 5 pages in the pattern which includes 2 designs. The pattern has full colour photograph, diagrams and graphs, step by step instructions and even blank graphs for you to chart your own design! The instructions are very clear and easy to read, though I must say that the diagrams are very good and I will probably go mostly by them.

I'm off to go start my ring! Thank you again to Heather for her generosity!

Update: I have just completed the 1st part of the basic design ring top and have to say how impressed I am! It is a well thought out pattern making the beading actually much easier than it looks and Heather has employed a very clever trick involving coloured headings so that once you have the 1st couple of rows started you just need to look at the colour of the header to see what colour is next. I can't wait to finish this one and move on to the more intricate pattern version!

Happy Beading!

Sarahx

Pearl Ladder Ring Tutorial

Quite often I have very small amounts of beads left over from larger projects and I am sure you do too. I hate to throw them away but it's also a nuisance to have almost empty bead tubes cluttering up your bead stash. If you are anything like me, you really don't have the extra space. So I came up with this little project which uses ladder stitch to turn those little bits and bobs into a ring that works up quickly and easily and would make a great last minute gift.


You will need a few gramms of size 11 seed beads, 6mm focal beads ( I used 3 x swarovski pearls) and fireline or wildfire.


1. Thread your needle with approx 1.5 metres of thread, pick up 6 size 11 beads and go back up the first 3 you add, snug up the last 3 beads you added next to them and go down through them.

2. Pick up 3 seed beads, go back though the last 3 beads added in step 1 and then back down through the 3 beads added in this step.

3. Repeat step 2 until your ladder strip is the required length for your finger.

4. Join the 2 ends of the strip by going up through the first 3 beads in your strip and back down the last 3 beads of the strip. Repeat this step to reinforce the join.

5. Weave in ends, tying several half hitch knots as you do so.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 for a second strip, but weave in only the shorter tail thread, leaving a long thread to add the centre beads.

7. With your needle & thread exiting a set of seed beads in strip 2, pick up 4 seed beads and go up through a set of 3 seed beads in strip 1 pulling fairly tight to join the strips together. *Go up through the next set of 3 seed beads, pick up 4 seed beads and go up through the next set of 3 seed beads in strip 2. Repeat from * one more time for a total of 3 sets of 4 seed beads. Exiting with your thread in the centre, pick up 1 size 6mm bead and go up through strip, repeat this pattern of 3 sets of 4 seed beads, 1 set of 6mm bead as required, ending with 3 sets of 4 seed beads. My ring is as follows 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads.

8. Weave in tail, using several half hitch knots as you do so.

I hope you enjoy this quick little project, don't forget to add pics to the OTTBS Flickr group if you make one. We would love to see them!

Happy beading!

Sarahx

Birthday Gifts Part 1.

I'll have to do this in two parts as my camera ran out of battery before I could download the monster of a necklace that I made for my friend Lisa. These are the pieces that I made for her sister Claire, Claire wanted earrings or rings, so I raided my stash and made her a few pretties. I will only post the things made from stash here the others will be on April Is Forever.

I bought these gorgeous turquoise ceramic flowers at the Chepstow Bead Fair in January but have been a bit stuck on how to use them, a simple circle of seed beads made with Beadalon and a crimp bead were the perfect solution.

Claire wears a lot of green, so I paired 4mm peridot and 3mm olive swarovski's and made this pretty raw/peyote ring and made a matching pair of earrings, again using a simple bead wire circle with a wire wrapped dangle.

I'm glad to say that she liked all of them!