It is easy to explore bead embroidery when you just focus on a simple project. I chose cameo imitations to make elegant pendants using different embroidery techniques.

Exploration of Bead Embroidery Techniques Using Cameo

The first of the two pendants features the purple cameo with a white silhouette.

Color

I simply repeated the two colors I saw in this cameo cab: bright white and purple. But I could not let it be so boring and decided to vary surface finishes from matte, luster to transparent rainbow!

To warm up the color palette I added #8 seed beads with brownish silver inside layer. At the same time, these beads added sparkles to the usually calm and matte style of cameo pendants.

Stitching

There are two techniques I was interested in before I started working on this pendant: braiding and a variation of a Sunshine edge.

Braiding technique is fairly easy to reproduce if you can create a clearly calculated bead environment for it (I am inventing big phrases here!). In my case, I had to make a support structure consisting of two types of seed beads – #11 and #15 – with an interval of 4 beads. The number of beads in each braid “stroke” really depends on the quality and size of beads. It took me a couple of attempts to see how many seed beads size 15 I need for the braid to look smooth and even.

For the border, I used so-called “Sunshine” edge stitch and I could leave it as is, but I decided to add more details and added smaller (#15) seed beads to finish. However, in my point of view, two small beads in between two bigger (#11) seed beads created paired beads with a gap in-between. Thus I added another round of #15 beads closing this gap.

 

Necklace

Initially, I wanted this cameo to hang on a chain, but when I finished the pendant I felt like it asks for a beaded rope that would complement the delicate design and continue the theme of pearl and purple.  I chose #15 seed beads (and #11 white Ceylon as a base) I used in the pendant to form a simple spiral.

 

Continue reading about another Cameo pendant bead embroidery project

Exploration of Bead Embroidery Techniques. Cameo Pendant II