It’s been a while from my last traditional tutorial, but here I am back in business. I had to browse through my blog to see when was the last time. In August, it seems, and it was a cat hair bead tutorial. I admit I’ve had a feeling of ”been there, done that”, difficulties finding something I’ve never done before. Then it struck me that there are so many sorts and shapes I haven’t tried. I decided to begin my new journey with tila beads. I’ve had some tubes in my stash for a long time and I haven’t found anything useful to do with them. Like it often is, something comes up and those ”difficult” beads find their place and purpose in life. This is really something I needed.
For these earring you need following ingredients:
- needle and beadstring
- 16 tube beads
- 8 tila beads
- seedbeads size 11/o
- two ear wires and jump rings (the jump rings are not in the picture but they’re needed, you’ll see)
Here I have used beads that have a black and petrol-colored face. When faces are of different color, you must be careful that you take the thread through the right hole so that all the tila beads have same color facing up. To begin you take four tila beads and four tubes on the thread.
Tie the thread together and make a nice tight surgeon’s knot. Don’t drag the threads extremely tight, just so that the piece isn’t loose.
Take the thread through two more beads and when you reach a tila bead (any of them), make a U-turn to begin the second round.
Because the outer circle must be larger than the inner one, you have to add seedbeads to the round. How many you need varies by brands and shapes. I used Matsuno and needed three to each quarter, that makes twelve seedbeads in total.
Now we have a full circle. Take the thread through the last tila bead but NOT through the seedbead on its other end.
Now you start making a loop where to attach a jump ring. Place 8 seedbeads on your thread, go through the tila bead, tighten and then again through seedbeads several times. Remember to leave out the seedbeads that are right next the tila bead. They are not part of your loop.
Use a jump ring to attach the piece and the hook. Close the ring and there it is. When you’re using just one jump ring, the hook will be parallel to the piece. If you want the hook to point backwards, you need to use two jump rings.
Have fun, fellow beaders!
