Tip for Making Your Own Seed Bead Patterns

Seed Bead PatternsUsing seed beads for your projects be it jewelry, clothing or household items you will more than likely follow a pattern. A seed bead pattern is basically a set of instructions that guide you through your design. Seed bead patterns can be obtained either as downloads from specialist pattern websites or from craft stores and independent shops.

However if you have progressed beyond following patterns and would like to try out making your own but do not know where to start, here are some simple tips to help you along the way.

Understand the basics of bead work. This may sound obvious but before you go head first into pattern design ask yourself is your skill level good enough. Have you mastered the tools available in bead making to be able to produce an easy to follow pattern.

Settle on the complexity of design you want to make a pattern for. If you are a relative novice at seed beading maybe design a simple single thread design pattern first before entering into more elaborate designs for example a beaded bag or multi layered necklace.

Prepare your design. Using graph paper is a great way of planning your design, treating each square of the paper as a bead once complete along with the different colors it will give you a great idea how the design is forming. This method is also good for assessing the scale of your design.

Make note of your materials. Sorting out the amount of beads required and what size and color quantities along with the tools needed is essential when making a pattern. I prefer to make inventory notes along the way when designing my pattern this way you are not compiling at the end of the design which is much more difficult to keep track of.

Finally try out your pattern, give it a test run and see if any changes or tweaks are required. It is always best to soak test your pattern before unleashing it on the world, this means you won’t have to adjust the pattern when people are actively using it as this could spoil your reputation.

What are Seed Beads?

Seed BeadsSeed beads are small beads usually made of plastic, glass or metal, they can measure from one millimetre and are used for jewelry making, clothing adornment, household decoration to name a few uses.

Who manufacturers these beads?

The Czech Republic are the biggest manufacturer, they produce glass beads, firepolish beads and also crystal beads. Other countries that are known for making seed beads are Japan and France. The French usually make their beads from recycled metals. India and China are rapidly becoming as productive in mass bead making as other countries but beware, the quality is not as good.

What styles of Seed Beads can you get?

Seed beads come in all types of textures and shapes. They can be transparent, translucent, opaque, colored, lustered or matte finished for example. Japanese beads are known for their cylinder shape which makes the bead not as rounded but more space for better design work. Charlotte Cut beads have parts of the surface cut to make the bead shine more, Charlotte Cut beads are also known as single faceted beads as well are 2 cut or 3 cut beads depending on how many surface cuts there are.

What size do Seed Beads go up to?

Seed beads come in various sizes, typically a size 11 bead is an inch in size, these sizes range from 5 to 24. A bead is measured before it is cut so if you have a bead that has been deemed as an inch in size chances are it is slightly less than an inch due to wastage from it being cut. Unfortunately seed bead sizes are not exact.

How are the quantities measured?

Seed beads are not measured by quantity; the logistics of counting out thousands of beads makes it impossible to be accurate. Instead the beads are measured by weight or a hank. A hank is a bundle of beads made up usually of 12 strands if it is a size 11 beads for example. Buying beads in a hank does work out for value than buying them loose weight. Czech beads are usually sold as a hank were as Japanese beads are not.