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Healing Beadwork by Susan H. Aguirre
Beadwork Tips
Bringing Healing & Spirit into your Beadwork
Saving thread | Tip for Dutch Spirals | Carpal Tunnel, Tendonitis, or wrist pain?
Threading hint: Saving yourself knots in the middle of your work
This tip was given to me by a fellow beadworker and friend, Dawn Tomlinson. She is an incredibly gifted and speedy beader - you will want to try this out! Dawn wrote about this technique:
Here's a technique that will help you to continue working without tying knots in your thread. I "discovered" this hint while making a bracelet in spiral rope chain but it will work when making brick stitch earrings, freeform peyote, beaded beads, peyote tubes, and Dutch spirals. It was annoying to run out of thread halfway though, tie a knot in the middle, and weave the ends in. All of a sudden a light went on in my head. Just wind off some thread from the spool, DON'T cut it off, work as far as the thread would allow (leaving thread on the end for finishing), then wind off some more thread from the spool. Thread that end, and work.
Essentially, you are working from the middle out. It means less knots and fuss. By keeping the spool attached, you reduce tangles at that end. Note: This technique works well if you have an odd number of beads for spiral rope chain. For instance, a pattern of ABA. If, however, you are using an even number in a pattern, ABAB, you will need to adjust. In your first section, you will string your outer beads ABAB. When you return to the middle to work from there, you will string your outer beads BABA. This takes into account working in reverse. - ©Dawn Tomlinsonfrom Red Ventling regarding Dutch Spirals
...be sure to visit her beautiful beadwork gallery page (including her awesome dutch spirals) by clicking here
I would like to share a beady tip that I figured out a year or more ago and just never thought to share it with the list as a whole. If you like a tightly curled dutch spiral, then use a twisted hex bead on each side of the peyote portion and it will literally curl as you bead and hold the curl permanently. I had shared that with many people on a one-to-one basis, and now here it is for all.
Susan's comments to the above: I stumbled upon this myself, although it didn't really click until I read Red's mention of it. I wondered why my "Mexican Heritage" spiral was nice and tight, but my Easter spiral wasn't. The answer was that before (or after...depending on how you look at it) the longer ladder portions, I had used a small cut bead in the spiral. Any small hex, vintage cut, Czech bugle...or otherwise sharp bead will give the thread an edge to hold onto. The down-side is that if the bead is too sharp and you are a thread tension queen, it could cut your thread. So, be careful!
Tendonitis, Carpal Tunnel or plain wrist pain?
I had more difficulty with wrist and arm pain when I was working in my corporate job as a systems analyst/computer programmer, etc. Toward the end, I developed very painful tendonitis and nothing seemed to help. I did healing on myself, others did healing, I wore the braces, I took the supplements that help for carpal tunnel, I saw a "real" doctor, and had a lot of chiropractor treatments - those where very painful but did some good, as did my daily and sometimes hourly healing. Finally I figured these things out:
- wearing the braces at night instead of the day helped because then I wasn't overextending other muscles to compensate
- getting some very deep muscle/tissue massage and pressure treatment - ouch! but the relief the next day was 100%
- not typing or beading for a week so I wasn't re-hurting myself
- making sure my keyboard was at a correct level, and I purchased gel-filled wrist supports for my mouse-hand and for my keyboard wrist rest...they are terrific!
- holding my arms out and flicking my wrists really hard to "snap" them helped
- holding my beadwork in my lap really high (using a pillow) and using the arm of my sofa to support my arm while beading
I hope these beadwork tips have been helpful, 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