beAd Infinitum Now Has Instant PDF Downloads!

Florence Turnour and I have been working on redesigning our beAd Infinitum website for the last month, giving it a new look, updating photos of our bead work, making it easier to navigate, and most significantly, offering instant PDF downloads. Have a look!

This is the fourth time we have seriously remodeled our website since we started in 2005.  The task of redoing a website like this is quite large.  So, to keep our sanity, we are updating our pattern library in stages.  We still have yet to re-list many of our patterns and kits, but we plan to get them all listed and available for purchase as soon as we can.  Thank you for your patience.

Infinite Polyhedra and Cubic Honeycombs in Beads

Here are a couple of beaded honeycombs.  In geometry, a honeycomb is a way to fill space with polyhedra, with no overlaps or gaps, like a tiling (tessellation), but in more than two dimensions.  A beaded honeycomb is a 3D weave of a honeycomb, where (a) beads are placed on every edge of the honeycomb and (b) two beads are connected if they are on adjacent edges of the same polygonal face in the honeycomb. First is this tetrahedral-octahedral honeycomb I beaded in 2006, and it's remained one of my favorite beaded beads since then.  Today, I finally got some better photos of it.

 At the time, I made this, I knew that it represented some sort of crystal structure, and I knew there were at least a couple hundred different molecular arrangements of crystals.  (In fact, there are 230 space groups.)  I was a little overwhelmed by the possibilities at the time. So I shelved the idea of looking at them until lately.   I recently beaded this bitruncated cubic honeycomb.

If you like this post, you'll certainly enjoy the beaded runcitruncated cubic honeycomb.  I like to imagine that I'll find time to bead more of these honeycombs in the future, now that we have Wikipedia as a resource.  If you have a favorite honeycomb that you want to see rendered in beads, let me know because I could really use some help picking.  There's just so, so many to choose from! Anyway, thanks for looking.

TUTORIAL Lozenge Bracelet Beaded Angle Weave with Button Loop Closure

My newest tutorial explains how to weave the Lozenge Bracelet with two sizes of seed beads and thread. The Lozenge weave creates a thin fabric of seed beads that is flexible and comfortable. You can make this weave in lots of different shapes because the pattern repeats like wallpaper.

Lozenge Bracelet with Beaded Button Loop Clasp

This tutorial also includes step-by-step instructions for weaving the button loops. This clasp is quite easy to do and undo, and it stays buttoned when you want it to.  I wore the bracelet out to lunch, and I didn't have a single loop come undone. Plus, if one were to come undone, there's two more to catch it. The reason they work is a combination of the flatness of the loops and the shanks on the buttons.

This lozenge pattern is an unusual and complex angle weave, making it suitable for intermediate bead weavers who are already very comfortable with right angle weave. If you like RAW and want a new challenge, you’ll love this.  If you want even more of a challenge, you can scale this weave down to use your itty bitty size 15 seed beads, like I did for this Lozenge Weave Chain Necklace.

This tutorial is 21 pages, including about 100 illustrations and photographs. The tutorial is a PDF file that gives step-by-step instructions for the bracelet in the photos. The last 6 pages include photos and illustrations of a bunch of variations.  Here you can see all 21 pages.  If you purchase the tutorial, you get the exact same 21 pages, but in an instant download, LARGE, easy-to-read PDF file.  Isn't life great?

Lozenge Bracelet Tutorial

 Thanks for looking.