Spice Bazaar Bead Embroidery – Inspiration

Zuzi beaded her ‘Spice Bazaar bead embroidered’ jewel mostly from the Academy box for this Theme. She’s here to share the main steps of the beading journey, experience, ideas and inspiration in the following article, which you may take as a tutorial for your jewel, or knowledge source.

She says: “The Spice Bazaar Theme box contained a handmade glass cabochon. I thought about an embroidered jewel for quite some time – to think of all the challenges transparent cabochon brings and how to solve the bezel when I knew I wanted something different than peyote or raw.”

Sometimes, the cabochons are translucent or have a shape that has its challenges or as we love to say – potential. And so it’s with the Spice Bazaar glass cabochon. 

I wanted to find a solution for the irregular back where you have a flat base in the center and around the corner. And it doesn’t have a foiling = you have options! Yay!

I knew once I glue the cabochon on the foundation, the color will be visible through the cab. Test the cabochon on different foundation colors to make your choice. Depending on the color of the painted pattern, you can increase the contrast with the color of the ultra suede. I decided to go with a black color of Ultra Suede. 

I also made a brainstorming of all the options for larger components – the Cubic Zirconia navette cabochons. Since the Spice Bazaar theme is also connected to Arabic countries, I sourced inspiration from traditional Berber art and jewelry. These jewels use a lot of metal (silver) and combine with rich gemstone colors, for e.g., with red. And they often have the decorative pendants/drops hanging from the jewel. Keeping this in mind, I navigated through the Theme and the journey brought me to the “Desert Ruby”.

Material list – main motif and pendant drops

• 1x  32×32 mm Secret of the Spice Bazaar Handmade Glass Cabochon
• 4x  9×18 mm Cubic Zirconia Navette Cabochon
• 4x 9×18 mm Claw for Navette Cubic Zirconia Cabochon
• 4x  4×9 mm Miyuki Rectangle Beads
• 2x  5×8 mm GemDuo beads
• 5x 4 mm Round Glass beads
• 22x 3 mm Fire-Polished beads
• 16x TRUE2 Fire-Polished bead
• 6x 2 mm Round Glass Beads
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica
• 15/0 Miyuki seed beads
• 11/0 Miyuki seed beads
• Ultra Suede, 0.12 mm Fireline, Glue, components to finish your jewel.
• OPTIONAL: Extra beads for the pendant connectors and hanging the pendant

The Bible of Bead Embroidery Knowledge: The Traveller

I recommend starting here if you are new or want to deepen your existing knowledge. If you would like to bead any of the more complicated jewels in the future, you will need to be 100% comfortable with the basics. The more advanced tutorials don’t repeat all the hints and tips every time, so before you dig deeper, please, give yourself some time, and bead a Traveller. The instructions are extremely detailed, everything is recorded on video, and you can watch them as many times as you need. There are also recorded Q&A sessions from the time when I was teaching The Traveller for the first time, that besides my insight, are also deemed with knowledge and experience shared by fellow, more experienced beaders.

After watching these videos and beading your first Traveller, you’ll be perfectly prepared to play with all the beads and components in this article!

DESERT RUBY – The Spice Bazaar bead embroidery

I created simple bezel for the cabochon and then followed the bead embroidery basics of Erika’s ‘The Traveller’ video tutorials.

1. Prepare your beads and foundation.
2. Glue the cabochon Ultra Suede foundation. Then you can continue following the method in this post, or bezel the cabochon with peyote or RAW.
3. Add rows of beads according to your personal taste.
4. Add a decorative element – navette in a metal setting.
5. Cut your beadwork and glue the backing.
6. Finish your beadwork with stitching the layers of ultra suede together.
7. Add a chain or decorative pendants.

1.

Gently cover the center and the edges with glue.

2.

Put the cabochon to a clean Ultra Suede – especially the black one is sensitive – I used the roller for clothes to remove the microscopic dust that I didn’t want to have under the cabochon. Let it dry.

3.

Follow the natural “square” or # pattern of the cabochon. Tie a knot on your thread and *bead from the front to the back according to line on the cabochon.

Pick up (7) R15 + RS2 + (11) R15 + RS2 + (7) R15 and bead to foundation. Arrange the beads so they don’t cover sides of the cabochon.

Repeat from * to add another line of beads covering the cabochon.

NOTE: you can cover the cabochon on its sides too, but you need to consider that the beads you’re going to add may get out of the line. For e.g. if you’d use 4 mm Firepolished beads, the beads may not lay in link. If you’re going to change your ming and use smaller size of beads later,  it’s possible to add more R15 later, too.

4.

Fill the groups of (7) and (11) R15 between foundation and RS2 to create the net.

Tie knot on the back side.

You don’t have to cut the thread as you may use it later. Just be careful and don’t cut it by accident in next step.

5.

Carefully cut the motif, leaving about 0.5 mm on the edge. Do not cut the threads that fix your cabochon and the beads.

The edge will be covered by beads later.

6.

Prepare the second foundation, with drawing your lines – first a cross with 90°, and then also 45°.

7.

Apply glue on the backside of your cabochon and place it to the center of your lines.

8.

You can use a simple row of FP3 or FP4 all around the cabochon (work with 2-bead backstitch following Erika’s Traveller). Or…

Working with 2-bead backstitch attach (4) FP3 betweek the R15s’ net on the side of the cabochon. Continue with adding *TRUE2 + R11 + REC + R11 + TRUE2 + (4) FP3 while working with the backstitch.

Repeat from * two more times. Pick up TRUE2 + R11 + REC + R11 + TRUE2 to finish the row of beads.

You can pass through all beads to line them up if needed. Back to the backside and tie a knot.

9.

Follow the line you drew to the foundation and sew the P4 in the center of the REC.

10.

Attach a NAV in metal setting by sewing it through the holes in the setting to the foundation.

Starting from the P4, using backstitch attach *TRUE2 + (4) R11 + P2 + (9) R11 + P2 + (4) R11 + TRUE2.

Repeat from * two more times.

Tie knot on the back side – of course.

11.

Add TRUE2  + (4) R11 between P4 and NAV.

Add FP3 + GD to the new row above the R11.

Mirror the beads on the other side of the NAV.

Tie knot on the back side.

12.

Add a row of R15 all around the motif between the FP3 beads, covering P4s.

13.

Add a row of R11 above the NAV.

Add a row of R15 – exiting from the GD hole, covering the bead and R11 to the GD on the opposite side.

Bead to the backside, tie knot.

14.

Carefully cut out the motif.

Glue the bead embroidered motif to layer of fusible fleece (or extra suede),  and cut according to the size of the motif. Glue on a black Ultra Suede again.

Make one final cut all around the beaded motif.

Finish the edge with one row of Delica beads.

15.

Add pendants, drops or fringe (instructions for navettes are coming in a moment).

Take your time to do the math with C11 beads and positioning of the drops 😉

NOTE: To achieve symmetry I hung the two drops on sides using 2 neighbouring C11. Then, I had to hang the middle drop using 3 C11 (I skipped beading through the one in the very centre) to keep the balance. You can also notice the threads are still not cut – I do it at the very end, once I’m sure the piece is balanced and everything hangs properly, without turning to sides or out of center.

Use the Cubic Zirconia navette cabochons inserted into the metal claw and R15 beads, some leftover beads from the box for decorating the connecting part between the motif and the navette.

Anchor the thread in the prong of the metal setting.

*Pick up (7) R15 and anchor the thread into next prong.

Pick up (10) R15 and anchor the thread into next prong.

Repeat from * one more time. Pass through the (7) R15 to exit.

*Pick up (3) R15 and bead to (10) R15.

Pick up (3) R15 and bead to (6) R15, skipping the R15 as pictured.

Repeat from * one more time.

Pass through (3) R15 an enter the hole in the metal claw.

Exit the metal setting on the same side and pass through (12) R15 as pictured.

Enter the hole in metal claw again and exit on the same side.

Pass through (9) R15 to exit.

Turn the motif to the back side.

Pick up (3) R15 and bead to both holes in metal setting.

Pick up (3) R15 and bead to (8) R15.

Repeat from * one more time.

Pass through the first group of (3) R15 you added, to exit.

Pick up (7) R15 and bead to the (3) R15 from previous step.

Pick up (4) R15 and bead to R15 in the centre of the NAV.

Pick up (4) R15 and bead to (3) R15 from previous step.

Repeat from * one more time.

Pass through all the beads on the back side one more time, except the middle R15s on the top and bottom.

Tie knot.

For attaching the pendant, you have two options:

You can pass to the middle R15 on the top of the NAV and start from there.

You can also start lower – as shown in the illustration – and attach the beads, to both the back and front row of R15. This provides a balance and the drop hang nicely.

On the back, exit the second R15 under the top of NAV. Pick up (4) R15 (or more beads) and bead to (2) C11 in the embroidered motif.

Pass through (2) R15. Pick up (2) R15 and bead to the second R15 under the top of NAV.

Pass to the neighbouring R15 on the front side and retrace the threadpath.

Pass to the second R15 under the top of NAV on the front side and the neighbouring R15 on the front you started from.

Navigate through beads, tie knot and trim.

With or without the navette pendants, this bead embroidered motif also makes a perfect brooch. Play with more beads and elements, enjoy the creative process and your new jewel.

Happy beading!