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!
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