Lynn's Lampies - Bricks and Ladders

Lynn’s Lampies

A regular spot from team member Lynn Davy, a self-confessed bead addict whose unusual designs often feature lampwork beads. In this series she shares some of her secrets and shows you how to use FHFteam’s handmade beads and components in your own creations!

July 2012

Bricks and Ladders

Buildings are somewhat on my mind at the moment as we’ll be moving house over the summer… this month’s tutorial will show you a neat way to combine ladder and brick stitches into a sturdy foundation on which to build a cuff bracelet.

I struggled for a long time to find a use for ‘double delica’ beads because they have such huge holes that ‘normal’ sized cylinder beads just disappear up inside them when you try to combine the different sizes. But they are brilliant for making ladder-stitched strips because they work up so quickly!

Ladder stitch is also a good way to use bugle beads, although they are narrower than double delicas so you need more of them to make a bracelet length. They do give a lovely texture though…

A ladder more than two beads wide is a bit prone to gaping between its ‘rungs’. You can widen it by simply adding fringe (and with holes that size, you can add a LOT of fringe if you want to!) or by stitching along the edges with brickstitch. 

Brickstitch feels a bit weird to begin with because you don’t actually stitch through any beads of the previous row, you go under the threads instead; but it’s very simple really. It’s a versatile way to make lots of different shapes (the little hearts on this tassel are made with brickstitch)…

… or to bead around a larger bead, as in the pendant for this set. (The cuff is made with a ladder-stitch base and brickstitch edging, too.)

And once you’ve beaded around a bead, you can add loops and fringes to make flowers…

Brickstitch does have a weakness, though: the thread ‘bridges’ between the beads are exposed along the edge of the beadwork. Exposed thread is prone to catching and fraying, especially in a bracelet, which gets a lot of wear and tear, so it needs protecting. A great excuse to add more beads!

You can add a simple one-bead ‘picot’ edging (as we did when we made those beaded spacer beads) between each pair of ‘rungs’. Or you can make a more elaborate, formal edging.

Or else you can go mad with lots of beaded fringe. No prizes for guessing which one I’d choose!

This month’s project makes use of those little orphan lampies that so many of us have languishing unloved in our stash boxes, just waiting for someone to pick them out and give them a good home. And if you don’t have any orphans, search through the FHFteam’s shops and you’ll find plenty to adopt!

Tutorial: Orphanage Bracelet

You will need: ‘double delica’ (size 8 cylinder) beads and size 8 seed beads for the base, plus half a dozen small ‘orphan’ lampwork beads, a few 4mm crystal bicones, 30-ish ‘accent’ beads anywhere between 6 and 10 mm in diameter, a teaspoon of ‘bead soup’ with seed beads in sizes 11 and 8, a couple of jump rings and a clasp.

You will also need a beading needle, pliers, scissors, and thread – a tough ‘braided’ thread such as Fireline or PowerPro is recommended for this one because you’re using crystals and relatively heavy beads for the embellishment. (If any fringe beads look wobbly, go through them again once or twice more to stiffen their resolve.)

Thread your needle with no more than two arms’ length of thread and pick up four double delicas. Go through the first two of them again.

Pull the thread snug so you have two pairs sitting side by side. These are the first two ‘rungs’ of your ladder.

Pick up another two double delicas and go through the previous ‘rung’ again.

Then go through the pair you just added.

Pick up another two and do the same again. (Ladder stitch is really, really simple!) Keep going until the strip will fit your wrist. Then add another four or five pairs because it shrinks a bit when you add the edging. But don’t worry, it’s very easy to add more to the ends if you find it’s got a bit short…

Now for the brickstitch edging. Go through the last-but-one rung of your ladder so you’re exiting the second bead from the end of the strip (sorry, this photo is upside down for some reason).

Pick up two size 8 seed beads and pass your needle under the thread that connects the second and third rungs.

Then go up through the second of the seed beads you just added.

Pick up one more seed bead and go under the thread that connects the third and fourth rungs.

And back up through the bead you just added.

Carry on adding one seed bead to each thread bridge all along the strip. At the far end, double back on yourself so you’re coming out of the second cylinder bead from the end on the other side.

Flip the strip over and work back along the other edge.

Now you’re ready to add the embellishment – the fun part! It’s just simple fringing and I’m sure you already know how to do that, but here’s a quick run-through again…

Exit the first size 8 along the edge. Pick up a size 11 seed, an accent bead, another size 11.

Go back through the accent bead and first size 11 and carry on down through the size 8 bead you came out of.

Go up through the next size 8 and add another fringe with a size 8 bead in place of the accent. Continue to alternate size 8’s and accents. When you add a lampwork orphan, start the fringe with a size 11 and then a size 8 seed bead, then string the orphan, a crystal bicone and a size 11. Go back down through everything except the last size 11.

Keep going all the way along both edges of the base strip, mixing and matching however you like. If you have an accent bead with a transverse hole, add seed beads before and after it, and if it’s wide (like this leaf) spread it over two edge beads.

When the fringe is complete, add a loop of seed beads to the end of the cylinder bead rows; go through it plenty of times to make it strong, then weave the thread into the beadwork, knot and trim it.

Add a loop to the other end in the same way, then use pliers and jump rings to connect the clasp to the loop.

Wear and Enjoy!

Happy beading,

Lynn

Lynn's Lampies - May 2012, Bead Soup Bracelet

Lynn’s Lampies

A regular spot from team member Lynn Davy, a self-confessed bead addict whose unusual designs often feature lampwork beads. In this series she shares some of her secrets and shows you how to use FHFteam’s handmade beads and components in your own creations!

May 2012

Cheapskate Cheating

How to make the maximum impact with a minimum of materials is a subject very close to my heart – as you will know if you’ve been following this series of articles.

So here are a few tips on how to be a beady cheapskate. Not that I don’t spend serious money on top-of-the-range materials like handmade glass focals or those perfect, laser-cut Japanese cylinder beads. I do. But there are ways of saving pennies so as to be able to afford the fabulousness when you really need it.

Such as…

Bead stitches with big holes in (like netting, or the right angle weave chain in this month’s tutorial), save time. And time is money, right? You can always make your bracelet or necklace base ‘grow’ faster by using a larger size of seed bead, too.

This bracelet wins on several fronts: it’s made with big beads and a ‘holey’ weave and uses a beautiful vintage button as the clasp.

In addition, a ‘holey’ construction can cover a larger area with fewer beads, and has the added advantage of saving weight. (Less engineering, less risk of breakage, greater comfort for the wearer. Everyone wins!)

Try out affordable alternatives to expensive components, giving you more money for lampies – copper, for example, instead of sterling silver, or a leather charm bracelet for your charm bead collection.

And of course you can make seed beads into spacer beads instead of using lampwork or metal spacers; check out the tutorial I posted here in January.

Most important rule of cheapskatery: never throw anything away! This bracelet is made from beady leftovers and a selection of vintage buttons from granny’s button box. It was a commission and the customer loved it even though the materials were all recycled.

Failed projects, samples, experiments, broken jewellery… all go into the recycling tub (itself recycled, please note!) to be broken up and re-used.

After a while you’ll find you can pull out leftovers on a particular colour theme. It takes a bit of time to deconstruct them (beadwork is tougher than it looks!) but it’s good to give your unloved beads a new lease of life.

Mix up your leftover beads into ‘bead soup’. (If you don’t generate that many leftovers, some bead shops sell ‘sweepings’ or mixed ‘project beads’ at a discount price.)  This little bracelet is entirely made from leftovers. It has a peyote-stitched base in size 8 beads (a larger size, so it grows faster) and is randomly covered with mixed accent beads and shell chips.

Freeform or right angle weave are good beadweaving stitches for dealing with a mixture of beads… this amulet bag is made in right angle weave and has an intriguing ‘tweedy’ sort of texture.

Here’s a sample of my ‘bead soup’ (note the Nutella lid, these make ideal little beading trays!) and below is a short tutorial on how to make a simple right angle weave chain and decorate it with all those little leftover accent beads from your recycling tub.

Cheap seed beads can be a false economy. Indian or Chinese ones are never going to be as evenly sized and shaped as the more expensive Czech or Japanese seeds. So they’re no good for precise geometric work or bead looming. However, they are superb if what you want is texture. And usually, I do. These are about the worst quality seed beads I have ever possessed, but they are such a pretty colour… I’ve used them liberally in the tutorial below. Just make sure the holes aren’t too tight.

There are other ways to save money on beads and components. Charity shops, jumble sales, end-of-season sales at fashion shops, all can yield inexpensive but fabulous materials for the cost-conscious beader. Many beading magazines and websites have giveaways each month. Enter the odd competition; many of them have cool beady prizes and it boosts your reputation and sales too.

Join a forum (there are many, many advantages to this and they go WAY beyond just the beads!) and make friends, take part in swaps and keep an eye out for ‘destash’ posts – also watch out for orphan beads, seconds, discount codes and sales happening in the team’s Etsy shops!

Tutorial: Bead Soup Bracelet

You will need: a couple of teaspoons of ‘bead soup’ with seed beads in mostly smaller sizes (11 and 8 are ideal but this is a forgiving stitch and you can get away with more or less anything!), needle, thread, scissors, about 100 slightly larger ‘accent’ beads about 4-6mm in diameter, one lampwork bead for the clasp. (Mine is a beautiful ‘orphan’ bead from Kathryn Greer.)

1. Thread your needle with a comfortable length of thread and tie on a ‘stop’ bead by going through it a couple of times (you will remove this bead at the end). The ‘stop’ bead in my photos is orange. Pick up 12 seed beads and go through the first 9 of them again. This makes the first ‘unit’ of your right angle weave chain, with 3 beads along each side.

2. Pick up 9 more seed beads and go through the last 3 of your previous unit.

3. Without adding any more beads, go through the first 6 beads of the current unit again.

4. Now pick up 9 more seed beads and continue as before. Notice that the thread makes an alternating ‘figure of 8’ path; you never turn back on yourself, you always follow the thread in the same direction.

5. Go through the first 6 beads of the current unit again. (It helps not to think about it too much.)

6. Carry on like this until you have a chain of about 30 units – or a generous fit around your wrist (it will shorten a little bit when you add the embellishments).

7. Now start to embellish the chain. Pick up a small seed bead, an accent bead, and another seed bead. Stitch through the next vertical file of beads in your chain.

8. Pick up another three beads (seed, accent, seed) and stitch through the next vertical file of beads in the chain, in the same direction.

9. Continue adding diagonal embellishments all the way back to the start of the chain.

You might choose to leave your bracelet like this, or make it wider by adding fringing up either side.

10. To add fringe, pick up three beads (seed, accent, seed), miss out the last seed and stitch back through the other two beads. Continue on through the vertical file of beads in the base chain and come out on the opposite edge.

11. Add another fringe and stitch through the same vertical file of beads. Weave through two sides of the next unit and repeat to add fringe all along both sides of the bracelet.


Design tip: if you use the same type of seed bead at the tip of your fringe each time, it helps to pull the mixture of beads together and give the piece some coherence.

12. To finish, add a lampwork bead to one end and a loop to the other. The lampie first: pick up two small seed beads, two larger ones, a crystal (or some sort of accent bead that’ll fit into the hole of the lampie to stop it wobbling), the lampwork bead, and a small teardrop or ‘fringe drop’ bead (if you don’t have one, just use an accent bead and a seed bead, as for the fringes).

Miss out the teardrop and go back through the lampie, the crystal and the two larger seed beads.

13. Pick up two smaller seed beads and stitch into the opposite end of the last row of beads in your base chain.

14. Pull everything tight and stitch round through the whole clasp assembly again a couple of times to reinforce it. Weave the thread into the beadwork, tie a couple of knots around one of the existing threads, weave through a few more beads and trim the end.

15. Take the stop bead off the other end of the thread and put your needle on it. Pick up 15-20 seed beads, or enough to loop round the lampwork bead.

16. Stitch into the opposite end of the first row of beads of your chain, to make a loop. Check that it fits over the lampie and adjust the number of beads if necessary. Weave the thread through the loop several times to reinforce, then tie and trim the end.

And there you have it! Have fun with your leftovers, and do leave a comment to let us know how you got on.

Happy beading,
Lynn