Happy #needleworkmonday!
In this post I want to show you how to make some fun beaded earrings with fringes, but most of all, I want to share some very important tips that will make your work so much easier. Here are the earrings I just made, I used seed beads 11/O in four colors. I bought inexpensive beads on Amazon and the first tip here: use good quality beads, tube beads work best, or any uniform beads. My beads are cheap and not uniform, and it took me a long time to find relatively matching ones, they were mixed in my package. Pain in the neck.
The thread I used is regular D thread, I think Nymo or C-lon, it is OK. Tip: use better thread that is treated, like Fireline, it is easier to work with, I had problems with my thread, I got a lot of unwanted knots. Also, don't use long threads, you will waste a lot of time un-knotting. LOL.
Start with ladder stitch and make a double row of 9. This is a common width of earrings. Then build up a triangle using brick stitch and finish with a wire guard. All these steps are explained very well (in detail) on YouTube. I use wire guards because it is easy and it looks polished. My preference.
When your triangles are done, start making the fringes, get creative! I wanted an ombre look inspired by "fire". Tip: always make a transition between colors, like alternate the colors a few times, creating a "bleeding" effect. It looks better than straight lines, in my opinion.
Guide your needle back and fourth through those fringes, and make sure you don't have them too tight or too loose.
Finish by attaching the ear wire. Enjoy wearing your new earrings, they are very much in style this year!
My final tip: Use a long piece of thread and start the ladder stitch from the middle of the thread. Work your triangle with half of that tread. Not really half, less than that, because you don't need a lot of thread for the small triangle. I am not giving numbers here, because you will evaluate the length of your thread depending on your beads and your design. Soooo... when you finish the triangle, you secure the end by threading through the beads several times (tension ending). No need for knots!
Then you use the bottom part of the thread to make fringes. Fringes take more thread and it is easier to have a long piece of thread to use without knotting. Trust me on this one! If your thread is short and you need a new one, you must glide the thread back and forth through those tiny beads and they might get jammed and they break!! You don't want that. It will ruin all your hard work.
Hope my tips help. As you could see, this post was not a real tutorial on how to make the earrings. For this, the video tutorials work best, and there are plenty out there. Now go make some earrings, summer is almost here!
