Photo Journal, Week Two: A Fleur-de-lys Pattern, a Beading Loom and 6/0 Seed Beads

Total Time: 3 hours 5 min

While Watching: Mythbusters, The Late Late Show, QI
While Listening to: Nerdist Podcast

Materials:
Beadsmith-brand Rick's Beading Loom
Purple silamide beadstring
Size 10 long beading needles
Bead Treasures Czech Glass Beads: 6/0 Seed Bead Cobalt Rainbow Mix (they look blue in the photos, but in real life, they're purple)
Bead Treasures Czech Glass Beads: 6/0 Seed Bead Green Rainbow Mix
Bead Treasures Czech Glass Beads: 6/0 Seed Bead Silver Lined Gold
6/0 Lilac Seed Beads
Ruler
Bead trays (plastic lids from yogurt containers)
Scissors
Breakfast Tray (or other raised surface so you don't hurt your back bending over the loom)

For this blog post, I will be showing pictures of the second beading loom project I did this week (it's also the second one I've done on a loom ever). I'm not showing the first project (which I mentioned in my Week One in Review post) because I'm not happy with the way it came out, though if I can make some adjustments, it'll appear in a later project (and in a later photo journal post).

Note #1: I bought a camera tripod! I can now use my camera's timer function and take in-action pics with my hands in the shots!

Note #2: A sideways view of the loom doesn't really work, does it? It's not very clear, and there are too many things visible in the background. I'll have to find a different angle from which to photograph next time.

First, I made this pattern in Photoshop of a fleur-de-lys, along with some filler in the negative space around it:

Judging from a previous (and never completed) test loom project where I used 6/0 white and black seed beads, I judged that three rows of 6/0 seeds would have the width of 0.5 inches. My fleur-de-lys pattern had twenty rows on it, so I judged that I'd need 3 3/8" of distance between the warp rods.


When I warped the loom, though, I got the measurement wrong, so each warp thread ended up being 3 1/8" long instead of 3 3/8".

As it turned out, the gold, green, purple (which looked purple in some lights and blue in others, annoyingly) and lilac beads I decided to use in the project were a little smaller than the white and black beads used in the test project. 6 rows should have taken up 1" of space on the warp threads, but instead, the length ended up being between 7/8" and 1". This did not spell good things for the project. I figured this would end in one of two possible outcomes: either I'd end up with too much warp thread left at the top, or since I measured the warp thread length wrong in the first place, I'd have one row too many in the pattern and run out of room for the top row of beads.

I decided to make a modified pattern where the design ended on row 19 instead of row 20. Rows 1 through 10 would stay the same; the changes wouldn't begin until row 11.

After weaving on row 10, I measured my project again. I decided to use the modified pattern instead of sticking with the original.

So I kept beading. When I was done, there was 1/6" of space between the top row and the warp rod. This was not enough space for another row, so I'd judged correctly. However, as soon as I removed the warp rods and took the project off the loom, there *would* be space for another row.

So, I decided to return to my original pattern. I undid rows 11 through 19. If I'd been working with size 11/0 seed beads instead of size 6/0 seed beads, I wouldn't have bothered. But it had only taken 2 hrs and 15 min to do the whole thing (30 min on the last five rows). I figured there wouldn't be any harm to backtracking, which ended up taking 15 minutes.

I worked quickly, so it took 35 minutes to redo rows 11 through 19, this time following the original pattern.

Afterward, I removed the warp rod on the headstock. There was a little bit of warp thread on the bottom, so as the instructions for the loom directed, I pushed the rows down. Meanwhile, the project was still hanging from the warp rod on the tailstock.


After I removed the project from both warp rods, I added the last row, row 20. It was the hardest row to add, especially since the project was no longer being held in place.


All the changes took 50 minutes total.

And then I had my end result. I haven't tied off the threads yet. The loomed part may be done, but I'm going to use this little beaded tapestry in a bracelet design, so I still need some of those threads.

If I'd stuck with my original pattern in the first place, this tapestry would have taken 2 and a half hours to complete. Instead, because the altered version of the pattern didn't work and I had to backtrack, it took 3 hours and 5 minutes total to make the completed tapestry. Still, this project took significantly less time than my first completed project (mentioned in my Week One in Review post). That project used 11/0 seeds, which are considerably smaller and required more control to thread the needle through each bead. This second completed project used 6/0 seed beads. The holes in 6/0 beads are larger, so it was easier to thread them with a needle.