Bead Net New Ideas for Netted Beadwork. Heather Kingsley-Heath

Transcription

1 Bead Net New Ideas for Netted Beadwork Heather Kingsley-Heath

2 Copyright Rainbow Disks Limited 2007 Rainbow Disks Ltd Road, 4 First published in the UK in 2007 Text, projects and photographs Heather Kingsley-Heath 2007 The Author: Heather Kingsley-Heath Heather is a designer, teacher, author, and owner of The Useful Booklet Company. Her work appears frequently in UK magazines. Heather is constantly researching crafts in many cultures, and her work includes advising indigenous people on how to create craft goods that can sustain a meaningful income. For a list of Heather s books, see page 62 To see more of Heather s work and the Useful Booklet Company, go to Heatherworks at: Heather Kingsley-Heath has asserted her right to be indentified as author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, by photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN Copying this disk for anything other than your own use is theft. Making pirate copies deprives people of rightful income from their hard work. Heather Kingsley-Heath holds copyright to all designs in this book; they may be made up for personal use only. It is illegal to sell jewellery made from these designs. HOW TO USE YOUR INTERACTIVE PDF Browse through this book using the pdf bookmarks and page tabs on the left-hand side they will take you quickly to the chapter, project or page you need. Use the pdf zoom tool to zoom in on close-up details in photographs, and see the details greatly enlarged. TIP: Click on the zoom tool and drag a box around the area you want to enlarge. When you have chosen your first project, print out its pages for easy and portable reference. Use links to suppliers to go directly to their web pages. 2

3 Contents Section 1 Section 3 The story & preparation 5 Introduction 6 Spread the net 7 The story of net 8 The variations of net 9 Tools 10 Beads 11 Choosing beads 12 Creative journey 13 Basic information Section 2 Bead tubes & beaded beads 14 Introduction 15 Five-bead net tube 16 Adding pattern lariat 17 Slinky lariat 18 Changing scale lariat 19 Netted bead 20 Lateral embellished bead 21 Vertical embellished bead 22 Picot embellished bead Increase net & fastenings 23 Introduction 24 Swelly belly 26 Swelly belly variations 27 Tube train lariat 28 Tube train red 29 Tube train variations 30 Clasps: button and loop 31 Clasps: beaded toggle 32 Clasps: beaded button Section 4 Flat netting 33 Introduction 34 Ring 35 Ring bangle 36 Expanda bangle 37 Expanda bangle variations 38 Netball bead 39 Spiky embellishment 40 Netball variations Section 5 Tube bangles 41 Introduction 42 Gild the lily 43 Gild the lily variations 44 The bangle 46 Sea urchin bangle 47 Sea urchin embellished 48 Sea urchin variations Section 6 Hollow net 49 Introduction 50 Baroque plain 52 Baroque more 54 Baroque bead: donut, round 55 Baroque bead: mini round, melon gallery 56 Gallery 58 Sketchbook gallery 60 Last word 61 About Africa and me 62 Suppliers/ Useful Information 3

4 Picot embellished bead Ingredients 10g size 11 seed beads in 3 colours that match or contrast size 10 needle beading thread extra beads, e.g. size 9, 8 or 6, or shaped beads (optional) To add more texture and create a different type of embellishment, you will need to know how to form picots. These can either be added laterally or vertically in just the same way as the other bead embellishment, but there is just one extra step. To form a picot Bring the needle through an intersection bead and pick up four seed beads. Pass the needle back through the third seed bead. Then pick up two more seed beads and pass through the next intersection bead. To tighten a picot, hold the bead at the tip, pull the thread, then let go of the tip. This bead will then sit back down and lock the thread in place. Variations Picots can have one (pick up three beads to start), two (pick up four beads), or three (pick up five beads) bead legs. When you have passed through a bead to form the tip, pick up the corresponding number (one, two or three) beads to form the second leg. Use a larger bead for the bead you pass through twice. Use beads in a colour sequence within your picot. 22

5 Section 3 Increase net and fastenings Now to start changing the shape By now you will be comfortable with the basics of netting, and hopefully getting used to how much thread tension you need to apply to form happy beaded tubes. Section Three shows you how to add scale to your netted tube, which is the first step in altering your netting in order to start shaping it. The most straightforward way to change the shape of your netted tube is to increase the number of beads in a set. By altering the set sizes, you can create bulges. By increasing the number of beads in your sets as you work, the tube will become fatter. If you reduce the number, it will shrink back to the original diameter again. You can also start layering your netted tubes one on top of the other, which is a great opportunity to break out all those colours and start playing with them. I have included some finishing techniques here too. There is no escaping the fact that necklaces and bracelets often need a clasp. Call me a purist if you like, but I prefer closures that are made of beads. There are hundreds of metal clasps available and in the right circumstances they can look fabulous with beadwork, but all too often a metal clasp just looks out of place. I use a beaded tube as a toggle or a beaded disc, and when I can find them, the easiest clasp in the world to attach is a gorgeous button in just the right material to match your beads. If you are a fan of metal clasps, use and enjoy them. If you like the metal versions of toggle and ring clasps, you will need to add a stalk of beads behind the toggle, otherwise there may not be room for it to lie at an angle in order to pass through the ring section. Thread on a few beads, then add the bar end of the clasp, thread back through the beads and into your beadwork. It helps to repeat the process through all the beads again to add strength, as the clasp is the part of your design that will get handled the most. 23

6 Section 4 Flat netting Flat netting can be rounded too Now you should be really comfortable with netted tubes and thread tension. Section Four is a complete change in pace and moves away from tube-constructed netting to explore flat netting. To get you used to making flat pieces and zipping them up, we start with a cute beaded ring. These are great fun to make and use up those small amounts of spare beads that are never quite enough for a full project. Flat netting may not appear to lend itself to shaping, but it illustrates one more step in the quest for self-supporting netted structures as we begin to explore the physics of structure. Thread tension comes into play as always, but this time it is assisted by bead size. Be amazed by your first piece of stretchy net, and also by netted beadwork that begins to mimic the properties of that original piece of plastic packaging I worked with. We then apply these ideas to netting in the round. In Section Two you worked on surface embellishment and used it for decoration. Within the following projects it is used to add surface tension, helping to pull your flat netting into a rounded shape that will happily stay rounded on its own. Be prepared to start mixing it up with bead sizes and to play with the scale and texture of your embellishment. We also take a look at some alternatives to netted tubes as a base for your work, with simple wire work and some colourful textiles to get your ideas flowing. 33

7 Section 5 Tube bangles Now get seriously into shaping Now we get back into structure again, taking tubular beadwork from Section Two, zipping it up as you did with the flat netting in Section Four and embellishing it as you have been discovering all the way through the sections. The principles of physics that you found in Section Four apply here too. By adding beads of different sizes, you can completely alter the tension within your work, enabling it to hold shape. The adventure continues with the application of that other principle using different set sizes within a piece. If you remember way back at the start, I had been playing with a piece of plastic netting that showed me that not all apertures in the net need be the same. My exploration of these techniques began with a curiosity about that plastic netting, and how it could be translated into beadwork with nothing more than a good technique, some beads and regular beading thread. Section Five shows how, in the end, it all came together. Throughout I have emphasized that thread tension is key to the success of netting techniques, that you should be able to keep and hold tension in your thread as you work and feel the beads click into place. The use of varying bead sizes can assist by adding tension within the work, based on their increased diameter and the journey the thread makes within the beads. Applying new layers of beadwork has also been a useful tool to help netting hold its shape. Hopefully, you are still enjoying the journey and ready to set off on the next stage. 41

8 Section 6 Hollow net The final stage of gorgeously rounded netting So, we nearly have self-supporting, empty net nearly, because so far we have relied on a little help from surface embellishment to keep things afloat. The Sea Urchin bangle (see pages 46 48) works on its own without the additional spikes, but it is still a tube. For the last step in the process of creating empty netted beadwork, we go right back to the beaded tube again, but this time we will be changing the number of sets rather than the size of the sets. Try it within a tube first until you get the principle, then spread your wings and create beaded beads that really will stand up on their own, as long as you have that thread tension sorted. Now it all comes together from those original examinations of beadwork from around the world. Set sizes, already partially explored, and set numbers within rounds all come together to create near spherical netting that really satisfies my original empty-net syndrome. The final designs rely on nothing but the structure of the beadwork to hold their shape. No more embellished surfaces or changes in bead sizes; now it is just netting, executed with good thread tension, and the principles at work when the set sizes are altered. The designs in this section are given as patterns for you to follow, with specific colour combinations and numbers of rounds. Feel free to create your own combinations; these are simply in place to enable you to try the technique first. Once you have tried the basic principle at work, anchoring your newly dimensional expanded sections to a netted tube, you can move on rapidly to create netted beads that stand alone. In truth, no hollow beadwork will withstand too much pressure, but these techniques result in hollow beads that should happily stand up to daily wear and tear. If you should happen to sit on them by accident, they will easily pop back into shape with a little encouragement. 49