Tutorial available here.
This past winter, the Bead Mavens issued an Ice Queen challenge. I have a small collection of rivolis. I buy them because I love the way they sparkle, but I don’t always know what to do with them. The most common method, as far as I can tell, is to bezel them with peyote stitch. While this is a great method, and I use it myself sometimes, it is hard for me to figure out how many beads to put in the initial round, how many rows to do, and to keep the darn thing in place while I tighten it.
I have been playing around with netting stitch for a while now and really love it. So, what better way to bezel these gorgeous rivolis than with netting? I pulled out the permanent finish silver beads because I wanted them to maintain their brightness no matter how much I wore or handled the pieces.
The icy blue rivoli paired with the silver and milky white rondels were perfect for my Ice Queen. They were simple and elegant, so I thought a simple and elegant chain was the best way to display the pendant.
I’ll be teaching at Cindy’s Crafts in Johnson City Tennessee soon. Check out this blog post for more information. When I met with Cindy, she asked me if I had a tutorial for my Ice Queen earrings. I hadn’t written it up yet, so when I got home, I made a couple more pairs to prefect the bead count and thread path. The first pair has a bezel of 11/o permanent finish seed beads around 16mm rivolis.
The second pair is also 11/o seed beads with 14mm rivolis.
One of the things I love about this method is that the bead count is exactly the same for all of the sizes of rivolis I’ve used. The only differences are the size of the seed beads and the thread path for two of the four rivoli sizes. The last two are 12mm (left) and 10mm (right) rivolis with 15/o seed beads. I also added a second round of crystals for extra bling.
The tutorial is available here. This is the version that I’ll be teaching at Cindy’s (possibly in July). It is the 14mm rivoli with 11/o seed beads shown above in pink.
