Lace Your Beaded Flowers for Lasting Beauty

Lacing your bead flowers and leaves will keep them looking their best for the long term. Lacing may seem like an unnecessary step, but it will make a big difference in how well your flowers hold up over the years. Lacing your larger petals and leaves will keep the rows together and prevent gaps and a look of “stringiness.”
 
A good rule of thumb is to lace any piece that has thirteen rows or more in the French technique. The lacing wire should be invisible from the front of the flower, and neatly tucked between beads and as invisible as possible from the back. For best results, lace very large pieces two or three times: across the center, and one-third of the way up and down the piece. The high and low lacings can be done on the diagonal to add further stability.

I recently restored four vintage bead flower arrangements. One of the biggest problems with these flowers was that they had been laced poorly or not at all. In the large white daisies, the artist had laced with heavy wire which had rusted and turned black over the years. I replaced these wires with modern, very thin, white-colored wires. The flowers suddenly looked fresh and new again.

Lacing is a technique borrowed from sewing. There are several ways to lace. If you sew, you know the terms running stitch and back stitch. When you lace your beaded flowers, you are actually doing a running stitch or back stitch to hold the rows of your petals and leaves together.

If you are doing a flower such as a rose, with flat petals, you can lace each petal separately. If you are making Daffodils, Stephanotis or perhaps Bells of Ireland, you will lace all around the piece just under the head of the flower, then tie the ends of the wire together. This forms the shape of the bloom. For a lily, lace all the petals together in a line, then tie the ends of the lacing wire together when you are done. This keeps the petals in the proper alignment, side by side, not overlapping.


First, you will need 30-gauge or 32-gauge wire. It's best to use a wire that matches your petal or leaf color as closely as possible. Modern lacing wires come in a variety of colors plus almost-clear, so it shouldn't be hard to find something that will hide inside your flower very well. You will also need a sewing needle.

Measure the piece you are about to lace. For our purposes, let's say the piece is two inches across. Measure and cut a length of lacing wire three times the width of the piece to be laced - in this case, six inches. Fold the wire in half. With the ends of the wire, straddle the front of the basic or middle row of the petal, in the middle of all the beads on that row. Gently draw the wire-ends through. Snugly twist the wires at the back of the piece to lock the wire in place. Work from the back of the piece to hide as much of the wire as possible.

Thread one of the wire ends through the needle eye and twist about a quarter inch of the end around the rest of the wire, to lock the wire onto the needle so you won't lose the wire. Move the needle to the outside of the row right next to the center row. Thread the wire through to the front of the piece, stitch over that same row toward the center row, and bring the wire through to the back. Keeping the wire free of kinks, gently pull it taut so the flower’s rows are snugly held together.

Move the needle to the next row, or the second row out from the center row, and stitch through on the outside of that row. Stitch over the front of the row and come back through between the previous row and the second row. Repeat this process until you reach the end of the petal, then knot the wire and cut it. Tuck or curl the wire end out of sight. Repeat the process on the other side of the petal.

You'll be surprised at how much better your flowers will look when they are laced. This simple technique keeps the rows in line and the whole flower in good shape. The flowers will stay much more beautiful for many years and will stand up much better to handling and cleaning. It seems like a detail, but really, don't skip this step! You'll be glad you laced your beautiful flowers.

To order your own custom bead flower piece, message me directly. My beginner and advanced how-to videos are now available on DVD. They teach everything from the materials needed, to arranging and displaying your finished flowers. See my Shop here on Facebook, or press the “Shop Now” button to go to my own website to purchase them at http://www.rosemarykurtz.com. You can also buy my own flower patterns there – beginner to advanced as well.

Thanks for reading, and happy beading!

Beaded Flowers - Load Beads the Easy Way

In making bead flowers, you’re going to be using hundreds or thousands of beads per flower. Loading techniques you might use for jewelry or loom projects will be very slow and may leave your eyes and back stressed.

You need a method of loading many beads onto the needle or wire quickly and with minimum physical strain. There are two very efficient ways to do this. 

If you are using beads that come strung in hanks, use the first method listed below. I’m right-handed, so I’ll describe how to do this for righties. Lefties, simply reverse the hands and you’ll be loading beads by the hundreds in no time. Note: When I buy hanked beads, I separate the hanks from the master hank, then tie a knot in the top of every hank. This prevents any strands falling out of the hank over time and having my beads ending up in the carpet.

Straighten about six inches of your spool wire and leave the end open. Choose a strand of beads and carefully ease the end out of the hank. If your top hank threads are very short, do this: Select a strand and push the beads as far to the other end as they will go, then carefully pull or cut the near end away from the hank.

Lay this open end of the strand across your left pointer fingernail. Lap your middle finger over the pointer finger’s nail and pinch the thread between them. Push several inches of beads up to your pinched fingers and stretch your thumb and other fingers away from those fingers. Pinch the beaded thread between your remaining fingers and hold the thread taut so the beads are in a straight line. You now have about 4 inches of beads ready to string and load onto your needle or wire.

Insert the needle or the open end of the wire into the beads closest to your pointer finger. Push the wire through the beads to come out of the beads close to your thumb. Drop the thread.

With your right hand, grasp the tip of the open end of the wire. Pull it away from the thread at a 45-degree angle. Once the thread has been extracted from the beads, the beads will be loaded onto your wire. Allow them to flow down the spool wire to make room for more beads. Re-set the hank thread between your fingers and repeat the stringing process.

When you get near the end of the beads on the hank thread, you have a choice to simply continue in this manner until you have all the beads on the wire; or, knot the long end of the thread so no beads can escape. Gently pull or cut the remaining end of the thread out of the hank and continue stringing from the short end.

The next method works well with Swarovski beads, bagged beads, or with hank beads that you have taken off the hank. For this method you’ll use a bead spinner or bead stringer. Bead spinners come in three or more sizes, which is very convenient if you’re using several different colors or amounts of beads, or your own mixed bead colors. See my new album Bead Spinner Varieties for some examples of bead spinners.

Regardless of the size of the bead spinner’s bowl, fill the bowl half-way with your desired color of beads.  Curve your wire to follow the shape of the bowl, or recurve it to the rear. Hold your needle or your wire approximately half-way into the layer of beads. Gently spin the bead spinner into the end of your needle or wire. It may take some practice for you to find the correct curve for the wire and the angle at which to hold it in the bead reservoir. Don’t be discouraged, you’ll find them with a few tries. Once you’ve found them, the beads will seem to defy gravity and “walk” quickly up your wire. Tip the wire or needle up to allow the beads to flow down the spool wire to make room for more beads.

Using a bead spinner is my favorite way to load beads when I’m using many Swarovski beads in a flower. Take a look at my album Swarovski Bead Flowers and you’ll certainly appreciate the value of using a quick method to string beads.

To order your own custom bead flower piece, message me directly. My beginner and advanced how-to videos are available on DVD. They teach everything from the materials needed, to arranging and displaying your finished flowers. See my own website to purchase them at http://www.rosemarykurtz.com. You can also buy my own flower patterns there – beginner to advanced as well.

Thanks for reading, and happy beading!

Reinforcing Completed or Vintage Bead Flowers

Bead flowers should hold their original shape, whether that shape is vertical, curved, standing out horizontally, or draped artfully downward. Make sure that your bead flower treasures retain their shape for the future by using stem stiffening and reinforcement techniques. You can easily “retro-fit” a finished or vintage piece. See my video “Vintage Bead Flower Restoration Project” for more information and photos.

If your flower is already assembled or it’s a delicate vintage piece, the great news is that the stemwire can be reinforced to regain or retain the flower’s beauty. This technique works best if your flower has a separate center unit; this will hide the new wire. If done well, the reinforcement will be almost invisible in any flower, and will greatly add to its beauty.

If the flower is a vintage piece, inspect its stem carefully. If the tape is dried out or loose, remove it. If the main stemwire is at all weakened or rusted, remove and discard it. Yes, you want to keep as much of the original piece as possible, but not at the cost of the strength of the restored flower. Keep all petal, center and sepal wires intact.

For smaller flowers: tape a length of 18-gauge stemwire and make a narrow hook two inches from one end. For larger flowers: Fully tape three separate lengths of 18-gauge stemwire. Keeping two to three inches of one length of stemwire extended, tape the three lengths together tightly. If necessary, wrap lacing wire around the three wires first to prevent slipping during taping. Make a hook of the protruding end of the wire. Keep the hook shape within a half-inch of the other two stemwires.

Carefully thread this hook through the bottom of the finished flower between opposite petals and beneath the center unit, if the flower has one.

Straighten the stemwires. “Set” the flower head snugly so it doesn’t slip around by pulling down and pinching the hook with a plier so that the flower head is held steady. Add the flower’s original stemwires to the new one and snugly reinforce with several wraps of green paddle wire or lacing wire. Tape all stemwires together.

For extra security  for a large or heavy flower, start with a hook of approximately four inches. Thread it through the flower, wrap the hook around the stem once, then pass the hooked wire through the flower a second time, coming from a different angle between petals.

To order your own custom bead flower piece, message me directly. My beginner and advanced how-to videos are available on DVD. They teach everything from the materials needed, to arranging and displaying your finished flowers.G o to my own website to purchase them at http://www.rosemarykurtz.com. You can also buy my own flower patterns there – beginner to advanced as well.

Thanks for reading, and happy beading!