There are three main types of glass beads that we work with: pressed beads, fire-polished beads, and table cut beads. Of course, there are more types out there in the Bead World, for example, lamp-work beads and blown beads, however, we rarely see them nowadays.
Today I’d like to introduce you table cut beads, also called window beads.
Some of them (12×18 mm flat drops, to be specific) where included in the newest Beadingshool Academy Theme Box: the Flowers in the Hair Collection, and I think it will be nice to get to know them a little bit better and to explore the possibilities how we can use them in our beadwork!
Just as the other two, table cut beads are made by shaping glass, mainly in the Czech Republic in the so-called Crystal Valley around Jablonec and Liberec. (Read about our visits to the Crystal Valley here and here.)
In fact, the process starts in the same way as with pressed beads: hot glass is shaped with metal tools, in the desired forms. Afterwards, the ‘raw’ beads are tumbled and polished to get rid of sharp edges, unnecessary bits and to make them smooth and shiny.
At this point, ordinary pressed beads of the same shape would be ready to travel to your bead mats. However, this is where the beadmakers take the beads to the next level with an extra step. For table cut beads, two ‘cuts’ are being made with a special grinder: on opposite sides, parallel with each other.
The result is a relatively thin, yet sturdy and strong bead with a ‘vintage-feel’ that would be hard to overlook when featured in your jewel!
My favourite part about them is how the coating of the bead (usually ranging from all kinds of metallics to picasso) shows on the edges, but the ‘core colour’ is revealed along the cuts. I like them a lot as they feel truly special. Finishes like Travertine and Picasso look particularly good when applied to table cuts, and those are my personal favourites. The colour choices are really nice, with the full opaque yellows, greens, reds, and blues shining nicely in your beadwork.
The down side of using table cut beads is that they can be a tiny bit irregular, with the hole not exactly in the middle,. That’s something to keep on mind when designing with them! The prices are higher then they would be for a similarly sized pressed glass bead, due to the more complicated process to make them. Not many manufactories are keeping them in their regular stock, so they can be limited in quantity, and restocking times are usually longer than with fire-polished beads or pressed glass.
The thickness and the angle of the sides make these beads perfect for bezeling, especially the round ones, that are also called coins. Sometimes table-cut beads are decorated even further with some ‘prints’ on the front and back. While the drops we have are smooth from both sides, these coin beads are edged with dragonflies from both sides.
A challenge to your designing skills is the same as with some of the flower-shaped beads.
They usually have only one hole, and need stabilising to make sure that they don’t keep turning around. I recommend look back at the article that I wrote about working with flower-shaped beads, as it gives you lots of useful ideas how you can master this!
When working with a type of bead that you’re not yet comfortable with, it is helpful to think about some familiar shapes that behave in a similar wave. Have you already been working with Origami Flower beads or Extra Low cabochons?
Table cut coins will feel similar!
Thanks to the flat bottoms, all three types feel perfect when it comes to bead embroidery. A good beginning is the Lady Lily project where I used an Origami Flower, but works like a breeze with a Dragonfly Coin, too. You can find the video tutorial on the Beadingschool Youtube channel, and make sure to find Vania’s super nice version with a Dragonfly Coin in the Beadingschool Club!
The Dragonfly Coin cab be the focal, for example, and with the flat drops you can create a cross shape or add them as petals around a cabochon.
…and not only the round ones, but, as you can see, the flat drops, too!
Zuzi beaded this amazing pendant from the ‘Flowers in the Hair’ Collection. The colours, shapes, clever solutions make this a statement pendant that’s not possible to overlook in any crowd.
The bezeled components, and different fire-polished beads create an intricate pattern, showcasing the big splashes of the vibrant colour of the Flat Drops, but also staying elegant with the more delicate pattern in the center.
Yey, another way of using one of our recent favourite techniques!
(If you are not familiar yet with square stitch bezels, click here for the gift tutorial: SQUARE STITCH BEZEL beading tutorial.) Because of the hole running through the beads, you can decide if you’d like to add 15/0 seed beads to the bezel (on one side or both), as two rows of Miyuki Delica 11/0 cover the side of the bead completely, and thanks to the grip of the surface of the glass, the bezel doesn’t slide down even without the smaller beads that are needed around cabochons. You need to keep good tension here, and you might want to reinforce and tighten the thread passes at the end by beading around the coin once more in a circular shape.
I beaded this earring while thinking about all the tips that I’d like to share with you about table cut beads, and I will publish the tutorial on the Beadingschool Blog during the upcoming days. It will also show you how I added an extra strand of beads behind the flat drop to prevent it from turning around.
As I mentioned before, same as with the bigger, flat flower-shaped beads, you need to add extra beads or components on the back of table cut beads to prevent them from turning.
We did it in the Toscana bracelet, and also it’s coming in the extended version of the Dreaming pendant, that’s going to be our second signature jewel. Later this week I will bring you a simple but cute tutorial where I will show you how I do this with table cut flat drop beads, and you can create two cute earrings with me – the one above with dragonfly coins and this one with only a single strand of seed beads running around the drop and with a Preciosa chaton, a Pumpkin bead, and a long fire-polished drop under it!
Because of the substantial flat surface of the bead you can use it also as a ‘canvas’ for some top decorations, with the extra beads being in focus, and the table cut bead peaking through. Similar to the effect of the Jewel Compass earrings with an Extra Low cabochon being the canvas, with some interesting examples beaded by Lita and Nicolien in the Beadingschool Club.
Hang under the main motif
After all these fancy possibilities let’s talk about one of the simplest ways how you can add a table cut flat drop to your motif: simply by attaching it to the bottom, with a 15/0 seed bead holding it from bellow. If you want to prevent it from turning around, you have to stabilise it, but I don’t see it as a big problem in this particular case.
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