Student’s Braids
- Topic
Please post photos of your finished braids and necklaces.
- Replies
This is a necklace made with 15º beads on four cords and melon beads combined with bicone crystals, tiny pearls, and 8º beads on the other four cords. I use Toho seed beads and am easily able to use the short big eye bead spinner needle for these tiny beads, however, I do have to have a thin silk leader thread.
I really love the braid I made for the class sample. The list of the beads I used as well as the cord layout are in the class instructions.
I didn’t take a photo but will describe how I set up the bead cords. I “paired” 2 cords of 11/0’s in black matte and shiny black with 2 cords cords with 11/0’s of both blacks with a combo of 11/0’s of bright sterling and silver lined crystal that all were tossed in the bead spinner. The other set of cords had 2 with just the mix of silvers and 2 with the total black/silver mix that had 4mm Swarovski bicone crystals every inch or so. I staggered where I put the crystals as you had pointed out in your presentation For the “crystal” strands, I used 10 lb fireline since that’s all I had in the house. The other beads cords were micro slon in black and silver. I couldn’t get used to doing the edo yatsu on the diagonal for the outside section. So I “cheated” and turned the Marudai when I worked that section, then turned it back for the kawari edo yatsu.
VEry interesting pattern that shows up. Beautiful braid!
Beth Hardy
I will be calling this braid “Inside About Out.” It wasn’t pretty as I discovered a bit late I was only using 2 not 4 packages of Metallic Fiber! Two are Ancient Gold and two are bright Gold. Oh well from there I struggled but played along the way. I placed 15/0 (dark brown) on 2 cords (with copper iris tear drops), opaque pear 11/0 with white fresh water pearls and Molton Tortoise (grey/orange) with semi-flat copper iris fresh water pearls, and lastly matte galvanized copper 11/0. I learned the pearls have to be round as some of those I used look awkward with a back facing out. Also those tear drops were just too much. Overall I love the idea and will do one more before Saturday (fingers crossed).
Randy, I love the combination of the two golds in your fiber braid.
I’m not sure I’ll get to braid today but wanted to post my layout. I can’t wait to see how it turns out! Using 4mm green rainforest rhyolite jasper, chocolate brown keshi pearls, 2mm polychrome sage and citrus druk, 2mm micro spacers in dark bronze and full apricot along with matte green and transparent green 11/o seed beads. The metallic is color #51. 2.8m/24
For the inside braid I used the varigated purple metallic. The outside braid has 4 cords of 11/o seed beads (2 gold and 2 olive-purple); 2 cords of 8/o seed beads; and 2 cords of 3×3 cube beads with a 11/o seed bead between each the cubes.
I don’t get “the feel” for a braid unless I practice it a few times. So luckily I had a two day window to experiment. The Silver Metallic (4 bundles), 2.5mm peacock color nugget pearls (baroque 8mm), crystal magic wine 3.4mm drops, 3mm melon luster iris amethyst, 11/0 demi crystal bronze lined rainbow, 11/0 demi blue amethyst gold luster, 11/0 demi copper magic, 11/0 takumi toho hemetite metallic
This will likely look better in the morning.
Randy, this is gorgeous. I like to do something new at three times but preferably five times, and also quickly, so that the last braid is still fresh in my mind when I start the next one. This really helps not only learn the structure/project but it also helps me refine the process. I often find a better or faster way to do this something if I follow this rule.
Gold Metallic Braid underlay with olive green and rust colored seed beads, green cut crystals, beige Czech crystals, mother of pearl rust colored chips, two sizes of unakite beads and 3 large cut soap stone beads.
Inside Out Edo Yatsu Necklace by Alice Forsyth-Bowley
Gold Metallic Braid underlay with olive green and rust colored seed beads, green cut crystals, beige Czech crystals, mother of pearl rust colored chips, two sizes of unakite beads and 3 large cut soap stone beads.
Here’s my setup for this braid.
This is the Inside Out Edo Yatsu Braid that I made during the Bead & Button Show 2016 Master Class. This one was created with a core stand.
This Inside Out Edo Yatsu Braid was made without a core stand using the technique that Makiko Tada called Covered Edo Yatsu. The seed beads are size 11 with randomly placed malachite chips. The Malachite chips were on 4 of the cords and only seed beads on 4 of the cords.
Turquoise Inside Out Edo Yatsu
11/0 Delica Opaque Cranberry
5-6MM Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Nuggets
8/0 Czech Etched Lava Red
8/0 Unions – Crystal Sunset Matte
5x8MM ZoliDuo – Crystal Etched
2 Ropes Japanese Silk – 2/16
Fireline – 6lb Smoke
Banyan Bay Studio – Dyed Wood, Magnetic End Clasp
Waiting for the clasp…..imposter, 4mm firepolished beads and pearls, 11/0 beads, and chain.
Here’s my setup – I went for blues, greens, and metallic.
I found this to be a very challenging braid for what I had thought were my intermediate skills, but very rewarding. I found the metallic fiber handled very differently than silk, and I wish I knew of some good tips for keeping it in line.
Now waiting for endcaps to finish into a necklace. 🙂
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