This beadwork technique belongs to Sandi Graves. Sandi is a fabulous beader, beadstore owner, Stormcloud Trading Co., teacher, and all around great person. I am fortunate that she is here in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Sandi drove me absolutely crazy by wearing a beautiful necklace made of an art glass piece on a multi-colored spiral rope, but it wasn't a spiral I knew. I begged her to teach me this technique, as I am sure others did...she shared it with the Upper Midwest Bead Society folks in the May "Demo and Do".
You can find the instructions for this technique, Right Angle Weave Spiral on Suzanne Cooper's site.
There are some things to consider when attempting this spiral. First, you must note that you will "lose" length when you add the embellishments or what I call the crosses. I keep pretty good beadwork notes so here are some examples. One necklace started out as 28.25" and ended up as 24.25". Another started at 34" and ended at 31". So, from these examples and others (I won't bore you with the details) you can expect at least a 3" loss. Another item to note is that you will be going through the ladder and side beads several times, so you will want to use beads with larger holes like Japanese seed beads or Japanese cylinder beads. Save the Czech or other irregular beads for the crosses.
As you can see below, this technique has become a favorite of mine. The necklace in the upper right-hand corner was done with 22 kt gold beads (galvanized) used as 2 bead steps of the ladder, the sides and crosses are done with 3 beads each of rose gold lined beads - yummy. The narrow rope, in the lower left-hand corner, uses 2 beads on each side and for also 2 beads for the crosses. All the others were done with 3 beads on each side and for the crosses. Other details: The 3 bead type are about 5/16" wide and the one done with 2 beads throughout is about 3/16" wide. From my beadwork notes I have logged that for both the 2 and 3 bead variety it takes me 15 minutes to complete 21 "circles" or what are the sides and steps of the ladder. For the crosses, 15 minutes produced 48 - 1-side crosses. If you look at the instructions, I am sure you will know what I am talking about, if not just email me and I will try to help.
I hope you like this beadwork, please let me know your thoughts by Signing My Guestbook or by sending me an e-mail.
In Love, Light & Healing...
Rev. Susan H. Aguirre
