Beading with peanuts and butterflies? Yes, please!

Posted Thu, Nov 11 2010 8:29 AM by maggieroschyk

 

Let’s jump right in to my latest blog. I’m a little behind on blogging, but not without a good excuse. Lately, I’ve become even more involved with the Loose Bead Society (LBS) in Milwaukee, Wis., and was on a committee to coordinate a bead show and sale. The sale is four days long and a lot of details are involved. The LBS paired with the Wisconsin Handweaver’s Guild, and together, beautiful woven textiles and jewelry made for a stellar show. My contribution to the show and sale were beading demonstrations every day and a couple of Starbuck’s runs. I wanted to show attendees why farfalle/bowtie are so wonderful to bead with.
First of all, let’s cover a little background on these beads. In my last blog, I talked about the farfalle aka bowtie beads that I received from York Beads, a Czech bead importer. But I’ve also heard that there is a Matsuno bead version coming onto the market called peanut or butterfly beads. So I decided to call Beki Haley, owner of Whim Beads in lovely Cotati, Calif. Beki is a very friendly bead purveyor and has a huge wonderland of beads for sale at the Bead&Button Show here in Milwaukee in addition to her bead shop and online website beads. I knew that Beki would have reliable information about these new beads. Of course she did, and now I’m going to share what I learned with you, my precious readers. So here goes.
The peanut or butterfly beads are the same shape as the farfalle/bowtie beads but are ever so slightly smaller. The peanuts are 2 x 4 mm and that begs my next question. What about the size difference regarding designing jewelry? Well, I would caution against mixing the Czech and the Japanese beads in beading stitches that require consistent bead sizes. However, there are stitches in which size consistency isn’t a big deal and the two types can be mixed together.
Beki is stocking 101 (wow) colors of the 2 x 4mm peanut beads and some of the colors are only being offered in these beads. The finishes should wear well, as they are made by Matsuno Beads.
I can’t resist the siren’s call of new beads, so I ordered peanut beads in various colors for the LBS show and sale. The timing couldn’t have been better! The beads arrived in time for the show, where I set up a demonstration beading table with my bounty of farfalle/bowtie and peanut/butterfly beads. They looked glorious spread out on the table, and people were definitely interested in the different shapes of the beads.

During my demonstration, I asked other LBS members to test drive the new beads. Needles were threaded and away we went, beading up samples of stitches to see what kind of magic the beads could produce.
Kathy Willmering was very adventurous and dove right in, stitching a tubular herringbone sample using the peanut beads in a luscious blue iris matte color. Kathy was concerned that the shape of the bead would prevent the stitches from lining up. Much to her surprise, the little bulbous ends of the peanut beads stacked right up and resulted in a very dense herringbone rope. Judy Markworth wanted to try right-angle-weave stitching and she chose the glowing burgundy, bronze matte colored peanut beads. Judy loved the way the beads interlock together.
In my opinion, right-angle-weave stitch using the peanut beads is so wonderful because all the beads line up and it’s a breeze to maintain a consistent weave. Well, Judy loved the peanut and farfalle beads so much that she left the show and drove to Eclectica Beads and bought hanks of them in several colors. The next day, Judy proudly showed me a lovely bracelet she had made during the evening. I was quite impressed.
I thought I would try stitching the farfalle beads in a spiral rope. I used a size 8 bead for the central core and farfalle beads for the outside loops. My stitching resulted in a nice, fat spiral rope with the farfalle beads giving this stitch a lot of texture.
For my last experiment, I wanted to try mixing size 11 seed beads with the farfalle beads. Tubular netting seemed to be the way to go and I started stitching away. In the past, I’ve beaded lengths of tubular netting and keeping a consistent tension was challenging. To my relief, the farfalle beads locked right in with the size 11 seed beads and it was smooth beading.
All I can say is, I hope you try these new beads — they’re amazing. Ask your local bead shop owner if she plans to stock these lil’ beauties. If you can’t find them locally, there are online sources with plenty of color choices.
Let’s keep this conversation going!

Post your comments and please, puhl-eeeze, send pictures of what you have made using these beads.

Share your experience and tips with all of us!
Hmmm, I wonder if I can use them in bead embroidery?

Maggie Roschyk is an accomplished beadwork and jewelry artist who teaches jewelry making and publishes articles about designing jewelry. She loves teaching aspiring artists and seeing the "aha" moment in their eyes. Her goal is to inspire others to look beyond the empirical moment and strive to create beaded art that reflects their individualism.

Comments