Right Angle Weave

I took a class at Bead Junction today on the beading stitch known as Right Angle Weave or RAW for short. The class was taught by the very patient Patricia Huff. I say "patient" because there were 3 of us and at any given point, none of us seemed to be at the same stage in the process but that didn't seem to matter to her. Thanks, Patricia!

RAW is one of the main beading stitches that I was not yet familiar with. We started out with bugles so we could clearly see the right angles being formed. Kate McKinnon has a great way of explaining this process, as if the four sides are the ceiling, floor and two walls of a room and you're making an apartment building (or for those of us in Toronto, yet another condo development!).

Then we switched to size 8/0 seed beads in two contrasting colours. As you can see from this photo, I definitely have the hang of it in my piece on the left but compared to Patricia's on the right, which is much straighter and uniform looking, I need a little work on the tension of my thread, in order to make the beads line up the way they are supposed to. But I like the finished effect either way!

I'll need a bit more practice but when I'm ready, I'm looking forward to making Kate's Groovy Cuff kit and some of the designs in Marcia DeCoster's Beaded Opulence book.

Okay, gotta go practice!

Buy 2, Get 2 Free

Just to let you know that Bead Junction has this great sale going on at the moment. They are selling strands of glass beads from India and if you buy 2, you get 2 free! There are lots of colours and styles to choose from and they are only $2.95 a strand for about 40 beads.

The even nicer thing for me is that I was in about a month ago and bought a whole bunch of these strands (27, to be exact!) and they weren't running this sale, but Patricia very kindly offered yesterday to match the ones I had already bought, which was really nice of her. But that's just the kind of people they are at Bead Junction - very nice, generous and helpful!!

Creating Snowflakes

Today I took a class at Bead Junction to learn how to make snowflakes. It was taught by the amazing Maria Rypan of Rypan Designs (http://www.rypandesigns.com/), who is well known for her beadweaving and especially her expertise in Ukrainian-style beadwork.


The snowflakes were very easy to make and quite beautiful when finished. Maria sells kits in three different sizes (small, medium and large). They are made using something called Soft Touch, a relatively new product of beading wire (or maybe just new to me!) available from both Beadalon and Soft Flex, that is thin like thread but strong like wire. It's very soft and flexible and you can even tie knots in it! You actually thread it onto a needle, which makes it very easy to work with, especially when making these snowflakes.


The pattern is very simple, a combination of overlapping "v's" with Swarovski crystals on the tips. It also folds up into a neat crown-like shape when not laid flat. (notice how the AB cut of the crystal reflects the light as a colour in the photo? cool!)