i really really love this bracelet, my parisianlights bracelet is something that is a really great present to make for people so christmas,birthdays, that kinda thing. the reason is, the first one is gonna take you a little bitlonger to make but once you kinda know what you're doing you can whip one of these wholebracelets out in 2 to 3 hours. which is fairly unusual for beadwoven projects. they tendto be kind of time intensive but this particular bracelet you can do in an evening. here'show we're going to start out, you're gonna have to use a stopper bead just to start out,to keep your beads from falling off the end of your thread. so i just take any bead thatis not a part of my project, i don't want to accidentally weave it into my project,learn from my mistake because i have actually
done that before and it's a very sad momentbecause then you realize that you have to destroy your project to get that stopper beadout. after you have your stopper bead in, you're going to pick up 16 of your beads andi have sizing information in your pattern for what kind of beads you're going to beusing here and this is the tedious part where you sit here and watch me count beads (13,14, 15, 16) we're gonna turn these beads into a circle, some people will tell you to tiea knot when you turn things into a circle, i do not like to use a knot when i'm creatinga circle, especially in this project because, we're gonna have to get back through thosebeads again and i don't want that knot to keep us from being able to get through a beadhole.so what i do instead i come from the bottom
end, that tail end, back through all of thebeads and you will not be able to do this in one fell swoop because there's so manyof them. work your way around so that you've gone through all of the beads again. and then,i'm gonna have you move forward on this, and by that i mean, i want you to keep going aroundin the circle, going through the beads going through the circle, until you have gone through8 beads past your tail. so here's the first bead, the tail's coming out here and you'vegot one bead there, so i need to go through 7 more (5, 6, 7) there is a method to thismadness that i will explain here in a minute. so now we've got our very first circle, we'regonna now add an accent bead down the center, it's gonna sit right in the center here andwe're going to attach it by going through
the beads on the opposite side of the circle.so it's going to come so that the beadhole will sit straight across here, the reasoni had you move halfway across the circle is now you know exactly what bead to go in onthis other side, it's gonna be the first bead to the side of where the tail is coming outof, so i picked up my accent bead, that big center accent bead and now i'm going to passthrough 3 seed beads and the accent bead will pop right up into the center there. it willsit a little above this ring of seed beads and that's fine, a lot of times i see peopletrying to center it inside that ring, you don't actually want to do that, you want tolet it go ahead and sit up on top of those seed beads a little bit. so now we're goingto create the next circle, but these 3 beads
that we went through right here, these guysright here, those are gonna be shared with the next circle which means that we only haveto pick up 13 beads instead of 16 this time. so (let me get that needle back out there)we're picking up 13 this time. there's my 13, i'm gonna attach them by going throughthose same 3 seed beads on that edge. *voila* brand new circle, now we're gonna attach thecrystal across the top, so we'll pick up our crystal. this time we have to figure out wherethat spot is that we're gonna attach it, so here's how to figure that out. there's a littlebit of an architecture to this circle, you've got the 3 seed beads on this side that areshared, the 3 seed beads that are on this side are going to be shared with the nextcircle, that leaves 5 beads along the bottom
and 5 beads along the top and so when yougo to find where this location is, you want it to sit on the diagonal, so we're goingto create it this way. what i like to do is i count the 5 beads across the top, 3, 4,5, and then bead 6, 7, and 8 will be the ones that i'm actually passing through with myneedle. and it is important to make sure that you're always attaching these on the samediagonal plane so that they all sit the same way, even though it's a round bead there'sa certain amount of orientation to it because depending on which bead you're using you mightbe able to see the hole of the bead and so it can be very obvious if 1 bead is sittingat a different angle or not. so here, we're ready for our next 13 seed beads, going to passback through those same 3 that are going to be
shared and then put my accent bead up in thetop. count 5 across the top, and then passing through 6, 7, and 8. one other important thingto know is when you tighten this up, if you tighten outward like this, see how it opensup the spacing here and it creates these big open holes on either side, instead if youtighten inwards, towards the beads, it will suck up a little bit better, so you wannatighten towards the beads. and now you can see how they're all lining up, you'll keepadding these 13 beads and then your accent bead until you get to the length that youneed, and i do have information about the length in your instructions and after youget that length that you need, then we're gonna come back and we're gonna add the claspbead right away.
once you get to the proper length we're actually gonna start adding theclasp now, which is a little bit unusual because in most beadweaving projects the clasp isusually the last thing that you add, but in this case we're gonna add it as we go alongand as we keep going back and forth we'll do our reinforcement of that clasp to turnaround and change directions. so here's what we're looking at, we're gonna pretend thatthis is the full length that i need. i guess i'm making a bracelet for barbie here, soafter you've added your last set of beads with your accent bead on top, then we're goingto go ahead and attach our clasp bead. and the clasp bead is going to be a larger sizecrystal and in this case i made it the same color as those accent colors there, there'sno reason that you have to do that, if you
wanted to make this a different color youcertainly can do that. so you'll pick up 4 seed beads, you're going to pick up a biconecrystal, this is just kind of a pretty little accent, 1 more seed bead, you'll pick up yourclasp bead and then last you'll pick up 3 more seed beads. i bring that all down tothe piece and skipping these last 3 beads that i added on, we're gonna pass back throughthe clasp bead, through the single seed bead below it, through the bicone crystal and through1 more seed bead. so what happens when i tighten that all down here, is those 3 beads we addedon the end of the crystal, it creates a little picot end and that's what will keep the crystalon your piece and the reason i leave 1 seed bead on either side of this bicone crystalis because i'm protecting my thread from the
crystal, the crystals can be nasty littlethread cutters and so by putting a seed bead on either side of that crystal, it helps protectthe thread. last thing i'll do is pick up 3 more seed beads to create the other legof this little attachment to the bracelet and then i'm going to, i'm coming out whati consider the top edge of this set of 3 beads on this end here, and i'm going to pass backthrough from bottom to top of those same 3 seed beads, and now that is all connectedbeautifully with the 3 bead legs on either side. and then we're going to be ready tostart adding our second pass. after adding your clasp bead we're gonna be able to startadding some additional embellishment up and down the edges of this bracelet, here's whatwe're gonna do. this shows me right where
i was once i finished adding my clasp bead,coming out of those 3 beads on the outside edge, i now need to get in position to startadding more beads and i'm just going to keep moving forward through 3 beads. this has mecoming out of the center bead of those 5 beads across that top edge, remember how i talkedabout the architecture and you've got the 3 beads on the side, the 3 beads on the side,5 top, 5 bottom. so we want to be coming out that middle bead of the top, now here's thething: if you accidentally counted wrong and you end up where you only have 4 beads onthis top edge or 6 beads on this top edge, don't bother ripping back and getting thatall fixed, because if somebody's looking that close, first of all they're invading yourpersonal space and they need to back up, because
you can actually fudge it a little bit andif you only 4 beads you're just gonna pick one of the center beads and go through thatinstead. but in a perfect world you're coming out of that third bead there, you're gonnapick up a single seed bead, you're going to pick up a bicone crystal, and a single seedbead and then you're going to pass through the middle bead of the next set of 5, andthis is going to create a little bridge, make sure you don't accidentally loop your clasp,that's a really common thing to do, and see how that sits right in that v shape in betweenthe 2 pieces, you're going to continue this all the way down the edge. so it's a seedbead, a bicone, and a seed bead, pass through the middle bead. keep working that down theedge, almost there, one more set,
and here it's a little harder to see it so i'm goingto count to the third bead over. alright, so now i've done one side of the embellishment.since i'm now at the opposite end, i'm gonna go ahead and create the loop end of my closureand to do that i need to move forward, i'm gonna pass through the last 2 beads of thatset of 5 that run along that edge, and then i'm gonna pass through those 3 beads on theoutside edge, right there. we'll pick up 4 seed beads and a bicone, just the way we did on the beadedend of the closure and then you're gonna have to pick up enough seed beads to create yourloop. now here's the thing, i can't give you an exact number of seed beads, i can giveyou a guesstimate and that guesstimate is in your pattern, but not all size anythingseed beads, size 6, size 8, size 11, whatever
they are, are created the same size. and sothere is a little bit of trial and error in this, i'm just gonna pick up a random numberof seed beads, i will pass back through first seed bead closest to the bicone and then thefirst seed bead under the bicone crystal. and that creates this little loop, obviouslythis particular little loop is gonna be way too small fit this clasp bead but i figureyou don't wanna sit there and watch me pick up beads. this is how you're going to checkthe sizing of your clasp though, at this point before you've stitched it all in and it wouldbe really hard to back it up, you wanna go ahead and kinda hold some tension on thatand make sure that your bead fits nicely and smoothly through that loop you just created.then we'll have to create the other leg of
this attachment so we'll pick up another 3seed beads for that second leg, we're going to pass through those same 3 seed beads onthat outside edge, one more time. it may start getting really tight in here with your tensionat some point, because we're filling up those seed beads with thread, if necessary you canuse a flat nose pliers to pull that needle through. then, we're going to just work ourway around on the opposite side here, i'm going to go up through 3 seed beads so i'mcoming out of the middle seed bead of the hump on this edge and then i'm gonna attachthe same embellishment down this edge. so, that's picking up a seed bead, a crystal,and a seed bead, passing through the middle seed bead of the next unit. and you'll finishthat all the way down to the opposite end.
when we come back i'll talk about how you'rereinforcing your clasp area and then we've got one more pass of seed beads to add. you'regetting really close to the end now, we just have a couple of detail things to finish up.one of those things is, normally when i attach a clasp i attach it at the end of finishinga project, in this case we're creating the clasp as we go along and we're gonna needto reinforce that clasp each time we come down to that end of the bracelet. my ruleof thumb is i want 3 passes of thread through any clasp and so since we're down there onthis end we're going to go ahead and reinforce the end of our bracelet one more time. so thisis what we're looking at, i just finished adding my last bicone bridge here and i willpass through all of the beads in the area
where i attached the clasp bead and what we'regoing to do is we're not adding any beads, it's simply passing through them as if we'readding them. to get over there we're going to, remember how we went past these 3 beadson the side first, we're going to work our way through the 2 on this end of the biconebridge, pass through the 3 on the end and now we're just going to follow the threadpath along the clasp. so up through these guys, and you've got a straight shot up througha seed bead, bicone, seed bead. through that giant clasp bead, through the 3 seed beadson the end, that little picot, back down through the big clasp bead, through the seed bead,bicone, seed bead. sometimes it helps you to get a better angle on it if you bend itover, it just gives you a better angle at
that beadhole, there we go, finally. it wastrying to be naughty since i'm on camera and it knows i'm trying to demo. then, finallythrough that second leg of the triangle there and then back up through those 3 seed beadson the end and now we just reinforced the entire clasp area a second time. we'll workour way forward because we're going to do one more pass up and down our bracelet. thisis just a little detail piece that makes it really nicely finished, i wanna work my waythrough the beads to get to the bicone bridge, i'm going to go through the beads in the biconebridge, through the seed bead that's attaching the 2 bicone bridges, so here's the last oneof the bicone bridge, the seed bead that was in the middle and then the first seed beadof the next bicone bridge, and you'll notice
how these 3 seed beads here create kind ofa half moon effect, what we're actually gonna do is pick up one more seed bead and thenpass through all 3 of those beads again. so this is one of those crazy situations whereyou're going through them once, you pick up a bead and then you're going through them,all 3, a second time. come on, i know there's a hole in there somewhere, it was there lasttime i checked. there we go, i'm actually going to just go ahead and pass forward throughthe bicone, but this is what we just created, is this little seed bead that pokes out hereon the side, and it's just a nice detail effect. so then to do the next one, you're going towork your way past those 3 seed beads, you're picking up one seed bead, and then back throughthose same 3 seed beads again. and you will
finish doing this all the way along the edgeof your bracelet, when you get to the loop end, you will do the reinforcement of thatloop end, which will then allow you to turn around and add that finishing detail beadon each one of these sets of 3 seed beads along the final edge. then the last thingthat you're going to need to do is to end off your thread and ending off your threadis actually very easy. what i like to do on this particular project is to tie knots, ina more tightly woven piece i will just weave back and forth and i don't tie knots, butthis one, it's kind of a little bit loosy-goosy so you wanna tie knots to make sure that it'snot gonna come undone. i like to do it on this outside edge, like somewhere along thebicone bridges and wherever your thread is
coming out, there's already going to be athread attaching the beads together, in this case the bicone and seed bead, and what i'mgonna do is i'm going to take my needle and i'm just going to loop it under that threadthat's already there, and i bring my working thread down so that i have a little bit ofa loop, the smaller the loop you have when you go through it, the less likely it is toprematurely knot on you and cause a problem. so go ahead and make sure that you pull thatdown nice and small, then you're going to pass your needle through that loop, does notmatter whether you go front to back or back to front. when you go to tighten this knotdown, i like to go nice and slow and make sure that as it finishes knotting up it tightensright in between the beads, so that it sucks
up into that intersection and you can't evensee it. my rule of thumb is that i like to tie at least 2 to 3 knots, so what i'm goingto do is i'm gonna pass through another couple beads and i'm gonna do the exact same thinghere, in this case the thread that i'm going to loop underneath happens to be connecting2 seed beads. i'm pulling my working thread so that, oop look i didn't catch the threadsomehow, ok let's do it again. so we're gonna catch the thread this time, pull it down soi've got a little bit of a loop, going on here, really? twice? twice i'm gonna do thisto myself? ok, how bout number 3, there we go, now i've got a loop. and, i wanna makesure that it's all gonna tighten in the same intersection, it was trying to loop arounda bead, and that's one of the benefits of
tightening nice and slow, i also can pinchright there, so that i can guide where that knot happens. and then your last thing afteryou've tied your last knot, is you're going to want to move a couple beads away, and again,it does not matter which beads you move through as long as your thread is not showing on theoutside of the beads, at this point i can cut this thread off and there we go! barbieis ready to go the the party, if some of your accent beads here in the middle, some of thembe popped down and some of them might be popped up, all you have to do is pop 'em throughthe seed bead loops there, so that they're all on the same plane and then when you wearit you'll wear the flatter side on your wrist and have the bumpy side on the top. and that,is how you make the parisian lights bracelet.
i hope you have a really fun time with it,it's great for playing with lots of different kinds of color combos and i hope that youshow off your work to me at some point in the future.
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