Have you been thinking about beading?  Uncertain of which technique is the best?  Check out one of my favorites “Jane” of Chilly Hollow!  She had a recent – like today- post about beading!!

COMPARING BEADING TECHNIQUES

You may remember that I used a single ply of DMC cotton floss from the strand of six to attach the beads on the tap pants canvas.  I stitched beads in place like they were tent stitches, going through each bead twice with my single thread.

For the bra, I tried another technique. This time I cut a much longer single ply of DMC cotton floss and doubled it in my beading needle. Then I took a tent stitch through my bead.  I came up a second time in the original “up” hole and then put my needle down in the original “down” hole.  I pulled the thread down but not all the way.  I left about two inches on top of the canvas so I could carefully separate the two strands.  Holding them apart with one hand and with a finger from that hand on the bead, I carefully pulled the thread down snug.  This is called a lasso technique or a loop.  You essentially tie the thread down and then put in a second stitch that has one leg of thread on each side of the bead.  This makes a little framework around the bead.  Beads are very wiggly things and you do want to secure them as much as possible.

When I looked at the two pieces, the tap pants have a few beads out of position.  I’m not sure if that is because I stitched the tap pants first and hadn’t realized it was best to work from the bottom of the design up on the diagonal yet, or if the way I secured the beads was better.  It certainly took me longer to attached the beads on the bra but they do seem a little more secure.

I think it is worth it to experiment on your own with these two ways of adding beads.  If I ever totally bead another large section of a painted canvas, I will probably use the loop technique, but it s very slow.  Whatever technique you do, remember to snug the beads down tightly.  We are used to have a somewhat looser tension in making tent stitches but when you are attaching beads, you have to pull tight so that there is no slack in the threads.  Slack in the threads means the beads will wander.

Written by Jane/Chilly Hollow
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