BEADS!! Look What I Made!!!

I am stonkingly proud of this, it has to be said. And, ok, I bought it in a kit with all beads and instructions etc BUT the finished thing actually…..for once….I think perhaps for the first time ever……satisfied my inner perfectionist. **huge grin**

I don’t know how many other crafting people out there have this same inner critic. The one that, right up to the point of gifting the item, has your heart pounding just in case you ‘missed a bit’ or somehow otherwise didnt make an absolutely spot on perfect job of your hand crafted item for them.
My inner critic is a bitch – she really is!!! But this little item……ha!! In. Your. Face!! Inner critic!!

The kit did help enormously, obviously. The right colours, quantities, finding, thread, instructions – even a needle. It was beautifully thought out and I will definitely be buying from there again.

But there were challenges!!

I have used peyote stitch before – for beading around cabouchons. I even knew how to do the initial start where you turn a small string of threaded beads into your first 2 / 3 rows as you ‘step up’. But I had never read from a chart before.
I read through the instructions……yada yada yada yada…..yep…..thread,  thread, thread…..and…….Oh!! Came to a grinding halt as I looked at the chart.

I could NOT get it fathomed. I even turned it upside down but….nah. So I called in the cavalry and asked littlun, who – being dyslexic -‘is more visually inclined in these things than me. I went over the mechanics of the stitch with her….but no….between us…we couldnt. She needed to have worked the stitch physically to apply the chart.

So I turned to aunty google. I eventually found a video on you tube for the 2 needle start to odd count peyote and out of curiosity went and had a look, thinking……”2 needles?? EASY???” Because that sounded like a lot if faff. And I really try to avoid faff if at all possible.

But, it was a genuine lightbulb moment. The minute I saw her put those first 3 rows on, that whole chart thing made total and complete sense to me. And what’s more…as I used that method to follow the chart….I realised why!!!

I have cross-laterality. Which in its simplest terms means that I am fairly ambidextrous. I cant write with my left hand but I eat left handedly and I am left eyed. I can do a lot with my left hand and use both hands together – to clean windows for instance. This 2 needle, and therefore 2 handed method had allowed my brain to make the connection between the written and the diagramatic. Ace!!

So, for the tutor lady on you tube who said she couldnt really understand why you would want to use the 2 needle method…….*whispers in her ear*…..if you are tutoring, you kinda NEED to know these things…..Not everyone has the same learning style, because not everyone is the same. And THAT is why you might want to learn the 2 needle method. Simple really.

However…..I could NOT find any free online tutorials for adding in thread for this method….I worked that out by meself. Nor finishing, as the threads can end in different directions. Sorted that one out too.

I did later find an adding thread method in one of my books that works with any bead stitch – using a slip knot before you come to the end of the thread you are working with. But hey.

Anyways……here are the pics of what I made. This kit – and many other beautiful ones – available from Spangles4beads

My first 5 rows which took approx 2 hours. I did speed up ALOT once I got the rhythm of the pattern”]

Finished piece of flat beadwork with a penny to show how tiny those beads really are!!

The Finished Item! Tra la!! And you cannot see the joins at all. Tis perfick 😀