Thursday, November 6, 2014

Making a Two sided Seed Bead Ring - like a donut

                                                                             Yesterday, another designer posted up on Facebook her preference for going from small seed beads to large beads when working a ring. I agreed with that except in the cases of making a bezel.
I happened to be wanting a two sided ring of beads for a new design idea. I did the small to large equation by doing 5 rows of 15s then on each side of the 15s, I did three rows of size 11s. I ended up with the image on the left. The centre is too large I think I did too many rows of 15s - it is buckling and not sitting correctly.
Rather than repeat this problem I strung 11s then did two rows of 11s, moved my thread into the inside and did 2 rows of 15s. I then added a third row of 15s and when completed I did NOT step up into the last added row. I remained where I was and did 1 row of 15s by "stitching-in-the-ditch".                      From the stitch in the ditch 15s I did one more row of 15s and 2 rows of 11s - see right side ring above.
I now have a perfect circle and by stitching-in-the-ditch the centre is perfectly round, rigid and firm.



I then did some extra peyote rows of size 8s, on each side of the ring. I then zipped the two sides together.                                 

On the left you have a side which is a little concave but certainly not a problem.


On the right you have the opposite side which is a little convex, also not a problem - in fact making it great for further embellishing.

I will be making my seed bead rings this way in future. I hope you can benefit from this little experiment.