(First in a Series)

So many cords and threads to choose from!  How do you choose?  While many cords and threads have can be used interchangeably, it is important to know why some threads work better than others.  It may be due to the medium you are using (stones, metal, seed beads, etc.) or because of the method (multiple passes, weaving, straight stringing.)  I will be talking about many different stringing media in this and future articles.

Silk – Silk is mainly used for knotting pearls and gemstones.  It is soft and strong, and comes in a variety of colors and diameters.  The thinnest diameter is 00 (.005mm/.127”) and the thickest is FFF (.0165mm/.419”.)   Silk is sleek and knots beautifully.  If you are knotting pearls, you want to use silk, never a synthetic thread.  Silk can be dyed to make any color you want.  Simply put a few grains of RIT dye in a cup with boiling water and dip your white silk until you reach the color saturation you wish.  Rinse well.  Dyes can be mixed for custom colors as well.  Silk can be purchased in bulk spools, or pre-carded with a needle.  I often use two different colored strands of silk to enhance the beads I’m knotting – for instance, one peach and one olive with unakite, one sage green and one lavender with lapis Nevada.  Silk can also be used in kumihimo or in Chinese braiding and knotting.  You can make a self-needle out of silk by using gum arabic beading glue to stiffen the ends.   German beadsilk generally is more “twisty” which works well in a “Tin Cup” style necklace, where there are distances of silk between the beads.  Chinese silk has less of a rope-like appearance and knots well.  You can use silk thread with French wire for a professional look, or hide the cord knot with a clamshell tip.  One last note:  In an earlier post I spoke about Gudebrod silk thread.  Sadly, Gudebrod has gone out of business.  For silk thread, Beadsmith has both the German and the Chinese thread, both are very high quality.

It can be confusing to determine what a seed bead looks like based on its description!  Here are some commonly used terms (and some not-so-common) to help you along.

Transparent beads are clear and tinted, and you can see through them.  Light is visible through the beads.

An AB (aurora borealis) finish is a rainbow effect on one side of the glass bead.

Opaque beads are a solid color and do not allow light to pass through.

Silver-Lined beads have a shiny silver color-lining of a transparent bead.   The bead may be crystal, or any other transparent color.  There is a mirrored effect coming from the center of the bead making them metallic looking

Color Lined beads have a color lining of an transparent bead.   The colors vary, including special color effects.   The transparent bead may be crystal, or any other transparent color.

Matte (or Frosted) beads have an etched look to them.

Semi-matte beads have a mixed glossy/matte finish to them.   They are a little brighter than regular matte finish beads.

Metallic and Metallic Iris beads have a metallized finish.   Sometimes, this finish rubs off.   Use a clear fixative like Krylon spray.

An Iris finish is a multicolor effect, which creates a rainbow type effect all around each bead, but also causes a range of color hues and tones within any mix.  It appears to look like a drop of oil spilled in water.  For example, Blue Iris is black with blue rainbow effect, but solid in color.

A luster finish creates an irridescent shine around the bead.  Lustered beads are rich, shiny, semi-transparent with a very high gloss.

Galvanized beads have a coated finished applied to the glass through a galvanization process.  This finish does come off, so we suggest you use a clear fixative, like Krylon spray.

Ceylon beads have a pearlized finish.   Sometimes the pearlized finish has been dyed to attain a particular color.

Alabaster S/L Dyed beads started with a silver-lined translucent bead, and then dye the bead to a certain color.    As with all dyed beads,  use a clear fixative, like Krylon spray.

Iridescent, another word for Aurora Borealis has a rainbow effect, usually transparent.

Iris denotes a bead which is usually a dark color (almost black) with tinting of the color mentioned.

Lined beads are  clear on the outside, color in the inside.

Opalescent beads have an opal-like effect in translucent materials.

Opaque Charlottes, also known as “one cuts” are solid in color with occasional facets, usually a 13/0 bead, used in many higher quality Native American beadwork pieces.  This type of bead is hard to come by in a variety of colors.

Roccaile beads are silver-lined, usually 10/0, round beads with a square hole

Satin Glass beads are shimmering translucent glass that appears to to consist of fibers of different tones of the same color.

carabee finish is a rich, opaque Iris (rainbow) coating, usually over a whole jet glass bead.

Straited beads have swirls and streaks of other tones or colors within the body of the bead.

While I do not fear the “evil eye” (after all, I have faced down my mother-in-law many times without use any sort of protection), I do really like eye beads, and had been collecting them for many years. One day I mentioned this around Ronnie Lambrou, and found out she too had been collecting eye beads. We set a date to get together and share eye beads and make something from them.

Between us, Ronnie & I had enough eye beads to ward off the evil eye for the entire third world. We shared our beads, and even though we used many of the same beads, our completed necklaces couldn’t have been more different. Perhaps Ronnie & I will show off our creations on the show and tell table in the future.

Now, I will not admit to reading the National Enquirer, but I will admit to picking one out of a trash can at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. Inside was an article titled, “Trendology 101″, accompanied by a picture of a bracelet made of silver beads, blue glass pony beads, and eye beads, as well as a picture of Jessica Simpson flashing her evil eye bracelet (made with red beads.) The article reads: “Let’s be real – that silly red Kabbalah string is really not that fashionable and kind of weird. So in comes Hollywood‘s newest and much cuter craze, the ‘evil eye’ bracelet!” The article goes on to suggest this website: http://divineinvention.com/

The point is…it is Ronnie and I who are setting the trends for all of Hollywood. You may want to check with us to learn what’s “in” and for grooming and fashion tips.

The necklace was designed and made by Ronnie with Jeri’s lampworked beads.  I was actually with Jeri in Ronnie’s studio one day when she was working on it, so I got to see the creative process (that particular day the creative process was being helped along by good food and drink.)

Even more exciting, the piece, along with step-by-step instructions, is in Bead & Button’s newest special issue, “Jewelry Designs with Art Glass Beads.”  Can’t wait to get my copy!

So…I set out to find all the best tips and tricks to threading a needle, and here they are!

1.         Good light…and dollar store glasses!  These are my most important tools when I thread a needle.   I use my portable, rechargeable Ott Light, and the strongest over-the-counter reading glasses I can get, usually from the dollar store.  They work for simple magnification.

2.         Wax the thread with bee’s wax or Thread Heaven.  Cut at an angle.

3.         Check which side of the needle’s eye is larger.  Because needles are stamped, one side of the eye is larger than the other side.  If you’re having problems with one side, turn it over and try the other.

4.         “Needle the thread,” instead of threading the needle:   Hold the thread in your non-dominant hand between your thumb and forefinger and pull it down until just the very tip of the thread shows.  Take the needle in your dominant hand and slide it down between your thumb & forefinger onto the tip, then pull that tip up and further through.

5.         If the eye of your needle gets clogged with wax, dip it in rubbing alcohol.

6.         If all else fails, use a “Super-fine Needle Threader” available at in my eBay store, along with regular needle threaders, needles, wax, Big Eye needles and more.

7.         In a pinch, you can make your own needle, which means you don’t even have to thread it!  Use 34 gauge wire.  Fold about 4-5 inches of wire over the center of your thread and twist the wire tightly.  Trim the ends to get a nice point.  This will not work for bead weaving, but is fine for simple stringing.

Bone beads or pendants can be antiqued in hot tea or coffee, or sauteed in oil Sauteeing produces a rich, golden color, but the smell of the oil will be retained in beads. The tea or coffee method can produce gray areas where the bone is not entirely white.

You can use Rit dyes for adding color to bone beads: Use a teacup and boiling water, add grains of dye until the desired strength has been reached. Leave your bone beads in there until they are the color you wish, then rinse well.

Mojee Shokri, 28, McLean:

What: Mojee Designs turns out fancy (but not fussy) necklaces, bracelets and earrings fashioned from bold 18-karat gold and semi-precious stones.

Inspiration: Each piece is one of a kind, and many of them are designed for a particular client, which means Shokri has a different muse for each. “I try to feel the style and fashion inside my client, and make something just for her.”

How She Did It: The native of Iran hit on jewelry design more than seven years ago through a designer friend. It combined her artistic streak with a desire to run her own business. She goes on buying trips to Iran every few months for stones and gold, and does most of the fabrication in her basement studio.

Advice: A designer just starting out has to knock on doors – literally, Shokri says. When she began, she honed in on a gallery in Georgetown, known for it’s collection of high-end but unstuffy jewelry, as a perfect venue for her pieces. “I loved the store, so one day I just showed up with my things,” she says. Now, the gallery regularly sells out of her work.

Signature Style: Shokri’s statement-y tassel necklace features moonstones, faceted citrines and mixed-metal accents. $1,980.

Look at her designs at: http://mojeedesign.com/

Danielle Insetta, 31, Bethesda:

What: Sixties fashion icon Penelope Tree would look perfectly at home in the candy-colored necklace, bracelets and earrings Insetta crafts for her label, Circasixtythree.

Inspiration: The colors and shapes of vintage Lucite dictate her designs, says Insetta, who will become smitten with a particular specimen from her trove of nearly 1,000 pounds of beads, then tinker around with combinations to highlight it. “I like sticking to the aesthetic of the era,” she says of her 1960s materials. “And I really like crazy color combinations.”

How She Did It: When Insetta came across a box of vintage plastic beads at a Parisian flea market, she decided to trade a career in finance for one in design. She took a few jewelry design classes and launched her label. Now she’s turning out about 50 pieces a week and selling to local boutiques as well as French and Japanese department stores.

Advice: Insetta relies on networking through the Internet and through friends to team up with other creative types: She met the graphic artist who designed her sales materials on MySpace and recruited the barista at her neighborhood coffee shop to model her work. “Working with people who are just starting out, too, is great,” she says. “They’re often less expensive, and they’re really ambitious.”

Signature Style: A navel-grazing necklace of vintage Lucite hoops and brassy gold plate typifies Insetta’s aesthetic: vibrant hues, chunky lines and a mod sensibility. $98. www.circasixtythree.com

Onyx is a type of opaque chalcedony that comes in various colors.   Black onyx is one of the most popular stones in bead designing. Although it does occur naturally in black, it is generally dyed to achieve a more uniform color.

As to the lore of black onyx, among those who assign special powers to gemstones, it is believed that black onyx defends against negativity, boosts confidence, and sharpens your senses.

Black Onyx and Cinnabar Knotted Necklace

Recently I received a shipment of beautiful Indian lampworked glass beads, all FULL of that nasty chalk.  But…no denture tablets arounds.  On a scheduled trip to the dentist, I asked for a sample, but they no longer provide them.  So…what to do?  GOOGLE IT, of course!

To my surprise, the very first thing that came up was my own blog!  That didn’t help me one bit – I already knew the denture tablet trick.  I couldn’t find another thing about it!

I gave it a little thought and decided to try a little trick I use to clean my sinks (thank you, Heloise.)  I put the beads in a plastic dishpan, put in some baking soda, and then covered the beads with vinegar!  The combination causes a lot of fierce bubbling.  I let the beads soak for a while, and when I drained off the vinegar solution, the bottom of the pan was thick with bead release.

So there you go…a cheap, eco-friendly way to clean beads.