If you have never tatted with beads this is not the pattern for you to learn on. This is the advanced stuff and something to work up to. No running before crawling.... If you are a newbie to tatting, these are just designs to drool by. Some day though...
Add beads to the tatting mix and it complicates everything. Never tat with C-Lon before? Well that is just a recipe for disaster. Slow and steady wins the race every time!
Materials:
11x8mm Olivine Travertine Rectangles,
3mm and 4mm Czech Fire Polished Rounds in Topaz,
4mm Czech Fire Polished Rounds in Olivine,
AQV245 Lined Champagne Black AB Vintage Toho 11/0 Cylinder Beads,
C-Lon Micro Beading Nylon Cord in Flax
Oh YES I did! I took apart the first cross (sniffle, sniffle, all that work cut up to reclaim beads...), and made this cross with the updated pattern. Cross now lies flat, no problem. This is almost an actual scan. I've added curves but did not clean up. It is a lot of work and I'd rather be tatting. Yes, the color is all over the place but that is the nature of the scanning beast. The cross is a little lighter in blue and the necklace should be a little darker. In hand, it all blends together. Unfortunately, I can't get enough light into the center of the cross so you can't see the beauty of the blue cat's eye cabochon behind the beads. Instead of using the brown C-Lon Micro I used sable which is the better match. The only difference in beading is 20 more 11/0 in the center. Instead of only one x5 bead round you work two and you add a 12mm cat's eye cabochon under it all. I'm trying to use the beads I have but I would have used 4-3mm smoke topaz ab in the center of the cross instead of the plain blue. I'd also would have used 2mm smoke topaz ab in the necklace instead of the non ab beads. Subtle differences that would have made the color combination work better for my taste.
Materials:
4mm Czech Fire Polished Round Smoke Topaz AB
2mm Czech Fire Polished Round Smoke Topaz
3 and 4mm Czech Fire Polished Round Caribbean Blue
DB714 Delica 11/0 Cylinder Beads Transparent Dark Aqua
11x8mm Fancy Czech Rectangles
Beading Tip: One should decide prior to tatting with Delicas, if they want to take the risk of using a bead that is more likely to break than one that is more hearty. So how do you tell? I use bead tweezers but you could probably use eyebrow, (the bead is one where the ends are so pointed and they will fit inside of a bead.) Place tweezer's end inside of bead and squeeze together until bead breaks. Some Delicas will break easily while others take a great deal of pressure prior to.
The 11/0 beads are an important part of the design and carry a lot of the beading threads. The beads that are ring beads carry the most thread. Being fixed they also have more tension placed upon them.
Beads will break no matter how careful you are with them. Beading can also be a Zen experience and eventually you will be able to tell if the bead is going to break prior to forcing thread through it. Sometimes you can use the threader to ream the bead and get more space to draw the thread through. You're not exactly reaming the actual bead but causing prior thread to give a bit more room.
Try to take all variables into account and pick a more hearty bead. Metallic, Gold and Silver-lined are good choices. Transparent and Opaque break a little too easily and I've had two disasters trying to use these beads on this necklace design.
I also used vintage Toho and they are a bead that takes a very delicate touch too!
Even though the red aventurine scans a bit lighter it does match the carnelian beads perfectly.
-click on picture for best view-
Paua Shell Tat-Bead
Tat-Beads