Tila and Superduo Bracelet

Today, at the bead shop, some customers and I worked on this fun Tila and Superduo bracelet, which is featured on pg. 80 of the October Issue of Bead & Button:

Tilas and Superduos

Tilas and Superduos

 I chose blue superduos (Blue Luster) and paired them with Jet AB2X Tilas.

Here is the bracelet one of my customers (Kate) made: she used cream-colored Tilas and turquoise green Picasso superduos:

more Tilas and Superduos

Our other stitcher, Debbie, had to leave before our photo session - but hers was gorgeous, too.

This is a fun, fast, and easy project - I highly recommend it!

Wavy Bracelet is finished

While I was waiting for things to firepolish in the kiln, I finished the wavy bracelet I was working on earlier this week.

I used my last purple Vintage German button - wish I had more! They came from a show, and have been out in the shop for sale, but I think I'm the only one who's used them!

This was a fun, fast, and easy bracelet to make - too bad it is so difficult to adjust for length, or I would make more! What a great way to use Tilas!

Tila Bracelets

The July, 2012, issue of BeadStyle Magazine arrived at the bead shop on Wednesday, and we have already dived in and made several projects.

Customers really enjoy seeing the various projects actually made up, and we enjoy (usually, anyway) making them - so here is one that we have explored this week:

On page 42, there is a Tila bead project entitled Tila Inspiration. It calls for Tilas, 4mm Swarovski bicones, 1.5mm cubes, and 15/0 seed beads. Although the project is worked on Fireline, with 2 needles, it isn't really beadweaving - it's really a stringing project.

I own a bead shop, but I can't tell you how many times I want to try various patterns in various beading magazines, and yet I don't even have all the bead ingredients the pattern calls for! So I can't even imagine how often that happens to beaders who don't own bead shops! But I can get very creative with substitutions, which also helps my customers figure out variations for projects.

And this pattern was no exception. I don't have any 1.5mm cubes. Fortunately, these weren't critical to the pattern. And speaking of not critical - while the project calls for 4mm Swarovski bicones, I rarely use Swarovskis to make spec bracelets for the shop - they're pretty, and I love 'em, but they are too pricey to use in demo projects! We almost always substitute 4mm Czech firepolish beads for 4mm Swarovskis (round or bicone), 3 mm Czech firepolish for 3mm Swarovskis, and so on.

On Friday, my friend Sonya used this Tila Inspiration pattern to create one variation - she used a bronze iris Tila bead, terra cotta-colored Czech firepolish beads, bronze 15/0s, and copper findings (the project calls for French wire, but we substituted wire guardians).

One of my favorite summer shirts is a lavender floral, for which I have no matching bracelets! Horror! And I never remember that I need a lavender bracelet until I put the shirt on, which I did again yesterday morning. So after arriving at the shop and getting all situated, I decided "no time like the present" - I love the bracelet that Sonya created on Friday, so I pulled some purple and lavender beads, and made one for myself!

Sonya's is the top one, mine is the lavender one under it:

I didn't have a purple 15/0 that matched my Tilas and firepolish (and, more importantly, my T-shirt!) very well, so I used 11/0s. Another substitution - good thing there are no bead police, right?

Sonya and I used slightly different stringing patterns - she strung her 15/0s once between each set of firepolish beads, and I strung my 11/0s on either side of the Tilas.

And I used Sterling silver findings with my purple beads, instead of copper:

These bracelets stitch up really quickly, and I love the way mine lies on my wrist - the 3 strands lie flat, and they separate a little when I move, and act like I'm wearing stacking bracelets. Pretty cool!

So, don't be afraid to play around with substitutions in beading patterns! You'll be pleasantly surprised what you can come up with!

And don't tell anyone that I started (and finished) a new project before I finished my Zombie Iolite Necklace - that is verboten!

Tila Flowers

I like the new 2-hole Tila beads from Miyuki - I have made quite a few patterns with them, and am always on the lookout for more.

One of my favorite things to make are Tila flowers (circular peyote + herringbone) - these are so versatile! You can come up with such a huge variety of color combinations, but also the composition and shape of the flower changes when you switch up the bead sizes that you pair with the Tilas - lots of fun!

Here is a bracelet/earring set that I created with Tila flowers, using on of my favorite Tila colors: matte black AB. This color isn't black at all, but a gorgeous blue iris with hints of bronze, gold, and purple. Love it!

These posts chronicle my love affair with matte black AB seed beads.

Here is another piece I created with Tila flowers - this one for the Bead Soup Blog Party Hop last fall:

Detail of the tila flowers stitched to the peyote ring

The Tila flowers use a lot of different sizes of seed beads, although you can control this a little bit - for instance, instead of using 2 or 3 different colors of 11/0s, you could limit it to one color. In the green and red flowers I made, I added a 3 mm Czech firepolish bead in place of an 8/0 - so you really can change it up quite a bit, you just have to vary the number of some of the other beads you use, so that no thread shows. These flowers work up super fast - so they are nice projects when you need a break from something!