Capture a Cab Without Backing

I was told I capture cabs in an unusual way so I thought I would give a quick tutorial (for advanced beaders) here.

First I string enough 11 delicas (or seeds) to go around the cab, there must be an even amount of beads and a little lose is better than too tight. Then I pass through the beads and peyote.

Keep the tension tight

Peyote until you have enough of a strip to cover the height of the cab, if you have worked a tight tension, you should have a slight cupping effect. Change to the opposite side of the ring that you have been working on and switch to size 15 seeds. work in a slightly looser tension and position the cab into the bezel before you end the peyote.

Once you have positioned your cab and finished your first row of 15s, turn the work cab side down and work one more row. 

Turn it back and work rows of 15 seeds until you are happy with the end result. The below picture is a completed one. I probably could have pulled the tension a little tighter on the seeds. I cannot readily find 15 delicas but that would undoubtedly give a cleaner finish but I like the contrast between the delicas and the seeds. This method frees up design ideas, by not having to use the Stiff Stuff and Ultrasuede, double sided designs become possible.  

(oh and I am aware this is a different cab lol)

Day Three

I don't have a photo today, the piece is getting quite close to completion and I don't want to ruin the reveal. Today I have mixed up some more transition soups of the light and dark colours and the main colour is all but gone as I am satisfied with the amount of beading done in the middle section. I have found and added some embellishments and I need to finish off the part that sits around the back of the neck. The back part is important but obviously you want to be more heavy handed with the embellishment where you can see it.

A quick word about embellishment. Make sure the colours compliment the look you are going for but don't be too restrained. You won't get an exact match and you want them to stand out. Bling makes your piece sing (excuse my sad attempt at poetry). Having said that, one fun freeform technique is to "hide" a lot of embellishments amongst the seedies. This can give the piece a "where's wally effect" every time you look at it you will find something new.

Day Two

So here is day two of building my blue freeform necklace. I find this part of the process exciting but also frustrating because I always think it is quite ugly at first. I now know that it is when I am 100% happy with every inch of the piece that I need to stop working on it.

A Work in Progress

Here it is, my new blue freeform necklace on the beading board. So I thought I would share the process. However, it is important to note that freeform has no real set "rules", if it did it would be a pattern. 

• As you can see I have three containers of bead soups. One was a container already filled with "scrap beads". As such, it is not quite the right blend but I don't mind picking through beads to get the look I want. I find bead picking therapeutic. I have up the top, right of the screen my main colour. I have a dark blend and a light blend. I want to transition from dark to bright to light blue in this piece. I have used a black base. I am aiming for a nice shadow with this piece and will add to the black base as necessary. I can subtract from the harsh black by adding more peyote over the top. I have also kept the silver lined beads separate as this is a colour that I will use to draw it all together and blend it along with the real bright blues that can be seen in the main colour.
• First, I peyote a long strip of the base colour. This is the most annoying step. working with one colour is boring! I try to make it two to three inches longer than I want as it pulls up and the extra inches give me space to make a clasp. It is easy with freeform to add and takeaway rows but I like to drape the piece as I go to get a balanced shape. 
• I then work the soups into sections and build with bridges and fringing (I rarely use fringing though) until I am happy with the shape, size, and thickness of the piece. A lot of people use thicker bases but I find them limiting. I'd much rather add as necessary than have to zip up sections.
• Once all the soups are blocked in sections, I blend in the colours so that they do not appear....well...blocky!
• That is all there really is. I prefer a simple clasp as I find anything too fancy takes away from the piece. I like a button or a bigger bead that can pull through a peyote toggle.