What's your pet peeve?

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Work Room chat:
Since I've made a mention about chainmaille, you've got to check out Rebeca Mojica from the Blue Buddha Boutique who makes gorgeous chainmaille jewellery. What's even more interesting is how she was was one of about 15 people across the US and Canada who worked on a maille curtain for one Omni Hotel's restaurant in Chicago. That's one crazy lot of maile, I tell ya! But oh-so-very-cool at the same time. Maille curtains! Fancy that? A work of art, no doubt. Details and pictures here.
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But of course what I mean is when it comes to jewellery making lar.

For me, it's predominantly the head pin and eye pin issue.

You know how these pins are sold in predefined length, right?

And as far as I'm concern, two scenarios can follow.

1. When the head pins or eye pins are not long enough for your need.
   
   Pain. Pain. Pain. That’s all that I can think of.
   
   Imagine this.
   
   
   An average length of these pins sold on the market is about 30mm long. You’re quite in luck already if you can find seller selling at 35mm length and you are VERY lucky indeed if you can find 40mm ones and it’s almost like a God’s gift if you can even find 50mm length!
   
   Now, let's say your intended design consists of one 4mm bead on top of a 12mm bead. Not a problem, right? They could still fit in nicely on a 30mm pin even if you used two 12mm beads. (Although that’s probably pushing it a little already.)
   
   
   So, exactly what is so annoying, you ask?
   
   
   
   That is if you are only making a loop to end your pins. What if you want to do wrapped loop?
   
   
   
   Hah!
   
   Now, tell me. How are you going to make that wrap?



2. When the head pins or eye pins are too long for your need.
   
   Waste!
   
   The longest pins I've ever bought is 2 inches long. That is 50mm long. With that length, you can pretty much do most of your wrappings.
   
   But………
   
   What if you're not using them for wrapped loop but just ordinary loop? Imagine a 4mm bead on a 50 mm pin. What are you going to do with the rest of the cut-off?
   
   
   I'm using a 4.5cm (which is also considered long already!) one for this demo.
   
   
   
   
   Well, you could re-use them.
   
   
   
   
   But what if you used one 12mm and one 6mm bead on the pin? Then you are left with a neither here nor there length which is not long enough for re-use and a waste to throw it away.
   
   
   
   
   
   Fine, so maybe I'm exaggerating a bit here but you get my point. :P
   
   Also, you know how we tend to forget about the small bits and leftovers when your working table is already in a mess with ongoing jewellery projects?
   
   Chances are, you’ll probably forget about them even if they are at a reusable length.


And don’t even get me started on….


3. Wrapping a teardrop shape bead.
   
   
   I know the picture here shows a round bead but this is still how it would be like if you use this method to connect a teardrop bead.
   
   Ok, I know you can just use a jump ring to attach those teardrop beads but I don’t like it that way lor. The jump ring which you need will have to be much bigger in size. My deduction is a jump ring of an inner diameter of probably at least twice the width of the cone where the hole was drilled.
   
   Also, this is due to the horozontal manner in which the hole was drilled across which makes it a bit difficult to fit it into a ring. Something like trying to fit a bugle bead into a jump ring as compared to a seed bead, I guess. It’s either you use a smaller bead or a bigger jump ring. Since you obviously have not much of a control over the size of the teardrop bead, the only option you are left with is to use a bigger jump ring.
   
   You see, the funny thing about teardrop shape beads is to leave some space around it in order for it to dangle, which is part of the beauty of teardrop beads. This is also part of the reasoning for using a bigger size jump ring, so that you get the dangling effect.
   
   Either that, or you may wrapped the cone of the drop tightly, forming a loop at the top, where the dangling now is due to the loop connection above. Doing a wrapped loop where both sides of the triangle so close to the bead but yet not a tight cone wrapped makes the dangling a bit….erm, ‘jerky’? Err….. get what I mean? ….. Oh, well…..never mind. -___- Next time.
   
   Personally, I don’t like the jump ring technique as I feel it gives an unfinished look to the piece.
   
   Neither do I like the Japanese technique of using a bended head pin. It’s something like how you loop an ordinary bead. but since the correct placement of a teardrop bead would have the hole across horizontally, you now shoved you head pin horizontally and then bend it upwards 90 degrees to loop it. It may be secure but it doesn’t feels like it looks secure to me. o_O
   
   
   
   Never mind, never mind….. next time, next time, ya.
   
   Anyway, this is just my preference la. I prefer to have it wrapped. After all, most of the tutorials I found in beading magazine and online suggested the wrap technique. So, probably that is why I’m inclined to want do the wrap.
   
   
   
   But how am I going to do the wrap with a 30mm pin? o_O
   
   
   How to wrap wor, like that? I think I'm probably gonna risk breaking it (which has already happened so many times before!). o_O
   
   
   
   
   
   Even a 50mm pin would be pushing it a little. Unless I use the Japanese beaders technique but I don’t like that method of finishing either.



4. Jump rings!
   
   When I first tried my hands on chainmaille, it didn’t turn out quite right. The rings didn’t quite sit in the way it was supposed to. I couldn’t understand what was amiss until I learn about the AR.
   
   AR stands for Aspect Ratio. It is a number that represents the relationship between the wire gauge and the inner diameter of a particular size jump ring. The exact formula to calculate aspect ratio is inner diameter divided by wire diameter
   
   AR, I learn is what makes or breaks a chainmaille. Each weave has a range of ARs that will work well. Without the right range of AR, the weave is either impossible or impractical to weave or even if it is .probably weaveable, it may be too loose to stay put nicely.
   
   The ability to calculate the ARs of your jump rings will let you know what weaves they are suitable and you can be at peace with this fact given that there’s loads of weave for you to choose from to begin with!
   
   So, what’s important here? Wire thickness and size of the inner diameter of the rings.
   
   
   
   Needless to say, it would be difficult to have control over the AR either since the standard thickness of the mass produced jump rings sold in the market in general is 0.6mm or even less. The thickest you could get is I think 0.7mm.
   
   The average size? 4mm, 5mm and 6mm. Anything smaller or bigger than that is pretty hard to come by and even if they do, whether if the wires are thick enough.
   
   I really feel like wanting to make my own jump rings lor. I know how to make them but I needed the stuffs to make them,

So, how now brown cow?

I need wires la.

With meters and meters long of wires, I won’t have the problem of pins being not long enough or wastage of pins. I can gain better control of my usage of material knowing exactly how much I need. Coming in different thickness, I can pretty much do all that I want and however I want with it.

Sterling silver wires are however, out of the question, ya. Too expensive for me to even consider although I do like the bright silver sheen of the wires a lot.

So, I tried copper wires. Bought a whole range of sizes.



But I didn’t like the dull greyish sheen. I just didn’t like the finished results with these wires. It looks more like grey rather than silver.

Then, I saw some private seller selling spools of artistic wire on eBay. They are not the artistic wire from THE Artistic Wire and I don’t even think she’s supplying either because it was only a one-off thing. I reckon it must be from her own collection.

Anyway, but because I was desperate to try artistic wire, I went ahead and bought it anyway.


Artistic wires from Darice.Really pretty colours! But these wires are not firm enough for my liking though. I wonder if those from Artistic Wires are any better?

But this did not work for me either despite the pretty colours. It feels a bit too soft for my liking and tends to break easily.

Thought of stainless steel wires too but it’s still the same dull greyish sheen that I didn’t like.

My Sa Kor’s visit back home at the beginning of the year changed everything. Find out how in my next post tomorrow and watch out for a small surprise in store for The Work Room’s readers. I'm sure you wouldn't wanna miss it! Stay tuned! ;)

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Make your own twisted beading needle

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Work Room chat:
Beading.com.my is having sales on selected beads and findings and a promotion on Swarovski crystals. Guess when I got to know about this? The Swarovski crystal promotion starts exactly one day after my order for the most recent haul of beads from them arrived. Bummer..... -_______-
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As much as I spend on tools and beads, I can also be frugal when I can.

One such situation is the twisted beading needle.

I know it doesn't cost much but I'm not bothered when it's something I can make it myself.

It's not like you can make stainless steel pliers or chase hammers, can you?

Anyway, this is a bead stringing trick my Sa Kor taught me.

Sa Kor used to do a lot of bead crochet when she was younger, during her elementary school days. She used to crochet purses with my other aunts to sell to my grandaunt who would then resell them for profit. So, yeah, it was a bit like child labour if you look at it from another perspective. LOL

They were paid only like some 50 cents or something for their labour work. This was back in the 1950's. 50 cents is not a lot of money but for a primary school kid, that's quite a lot already. And tell me, how many primary school kids are earning their own money?

So, what they normally do before crocheting is to string the crochet thread with glass seed beads and if you've worked with those beads before, you will know what a pain it can sometimes be. If you're working with fishing line, stringing might not be as big of a problem as say, if you are using other types of thread. Fishing line is in itself sturdy enough to even act as a needle itself. However, if you are using other types of softer beading thread, stringing would most definitely require a needle as it is in the case of bead crochet.

You can use smaller sizes sewing needle. Small enough to go through the small holes of the beads. However, while you can get the beads through, you can't quite get it through right to the end. The bead will be stuck right at the eye of the needle. That part happens to be the thicker because the eye need to be large enough for the thread to go through, no?



Well, there's beading needle, yes. But the eye of beading needle is so small that they would only allow sewing thread to pass by. Sewing thread are way too fine to be suitable for jewellery making purposes and I don't think that it is recommended that you use thread which are too fine for jewellery making for obvious reasons. Thread too fine will not be able to carry the weight of the beads.



So, this is where twisted beading needle comes in. These are needles made of a loop of fine steel wire twisted around itself to form a needle-like assembly. At one end is the twisted part which will act as the sharp point and the non-twisted loop at the other end is where the beading thread is pushed through. Then the loop is crushed closed to hold onto the beading thread and to make it small enough to go through the bead holes.



There is also the big eye needle. A clever little needle that splits in the middle to form the eye. Ideal for beading and loom work.



However, this is how you can make your very own needle.

I’m using gemstone chips to be strung into the floss-like stretchable string as an example here because I once had an aunty, a friend of a family friend who mentioned to me that she couldn’t restring the gemstone chips bracelet that she bought for her daughter because no needle she bought could go through (even the shop assistant confirmed that it will go through and we are talking about shops that sell sewing materials here and you would expect them to know better!) and asked me what needles I use. So, this was also the same trick I taught her and I gave her some of my DIY needles and it worked out beautifully for her.

Ok, if you have ever opened up a plug before, this is what you’ll see inside.

This is a dangerously AND badly wired plug by the way!

See the three small wires of brown, yellow/green and blue wrapped inside the thicker cable?

Cut one of these wires out. Anyone will do but make sure the length is long enough so that when it is folded into half later, it is still at a length that you can work comfortably with.



Scratching your head already? Wait, this is where the trick starts.

The colour of the wires come from the rubber wrapping. Inside these rubber wraps are tens (I’m not sure, never bothered to count but there’s A LOT!), of hair fine wires made from what I believe to be copper. These hair fine copper wires are used in electrical appliances to transfer the electricity charge from the plug point to the electrical appliances but we are going to use it for stringing beads!



Cut open the rubber wrap. This can be easily done with a blade.



This is what you’ll get.



You’ll actually get much more than this. This is the leftover from the previous wire that I open up.

This is what will later be your twisted or even big eye needle.

Take one of these copper wire out. You’ll only need one to make the needle.



Next, fold it into half.



Hold the folded part with your left hand and twist the two other ends of the wires together with your right hand keeping the two wires at the folded end apart to form an open loop, which will be the eye of the ‘needle’.





Continue twisting with your right hand until you reach the end. Of course, if you are left handed, it would be the other way round! ;) I’m right handed.



This is what you’ll get when you are done. I like to leave the loop a bit bigger because it’s easier to work with. You can of course make a smaller loop for the eye. Either way, it still will be crushed together to hold the thread to the needle. Either way will work fine.

Tadah! You just made you own twisted beading needle!

Let’s see how this ‘needle’ is going to work, shall we? :)

Take out the necessary materials needed. Here, I'll be stringing amethyst gemstone chips onto the floss like stretchy thread.



Next, thread your floss like stretch thread into the eye of the needle.



Curshed the loop together to close the eye of the needle.




Now, string your beads on as you would normally do.





They work just like any ordinary needle and thread. :)

Now that you’re done with it, do not throw it away! Why? Well, they are still re-usable. Don’t you just love to hear the term ‘re-usable’? I know I do. They usually means savings, savings and more savings. But then and again, you never spend anything to begin with also. LOL!

Remove the thread from the 'needle'.




What you do next is to slowly (I said slowly because these wires are actually quite fragile) untwist the twisted part of the wire……..



………. and you’re back at square one!




Repeat the above steps again the next time you want to use them. Or if you can just slowly open up the eye, you can also keep them in the open eye needle form. Either way, it’s fine. The choice is yours.

No doubt the wires needle will kink and break. (I’ve had some broken in the midst of stringing before! But then, I tend to use force when I become impatient). But you’ve got so many more as reserve from one single strand of wire cable! So, why the worry?

Yea, if so many why even bother untwisting it to keep it in the first place?

Well, no harm in saving when we can, is there? If you do no want to be bothered with the hassle, you may of course throw the used one away and start with a fresh new wire the next time you need one.

I think you can only find these hair fine copper strands in those electrical appliances cable wire. The copper strands inside other cable wires are much thicker and won’t, no, I should say can’t be used for this purpose. You’ll know that they are the right ones when they are hair fine strands.

Well, since we’re on the topic of threading, here is a few threading tips in general:

1. You may want to cut the thread end at an angle so you’ll end up with a pointier edge for easier beading.

2. Bright lighting also makes it easier to see the eye of needle and hole of beads and thus thread it.

3. It is very tempting to use long lengths of thread to avoid any situation of the thread running out even before the project is completed and hence the hassle of adding or attaching new threads. But bear in mind that apart from taking more time and effort to pull through, longer threads tangles easily which might result in knots in between. When you have knots in between the thread, you have a problem! Depending on the thickness of your thread and the size of the knot and the holes of your bead, beads may or may not go through that part of the thread. If the bead can still go through, good. But may cause in uneven tension which may affect the end result. If the bead can’t go through, then guess what? You’ll need to cut off where the knot is and end the piece if you have completed it or worse still, attach new thread if you’ve still got a long way to go! Therefore, the best length is to use a length only as long as your arms reach. Attach new threads if you have to. It is after all one of the basics that you need to learn. You can’t expect to do beading throughout your life without knowing how to attach new threads, can you?

Lastly, one gentle reminder on the DIY twisted beading needle, folks. DO NOT cut the wire cable from ANY of your household electrical appliances! ONLY cut them from your unwanted electrical appliances i.e. those that are no longer functioning and those that you are thinking of throwing them away. Do not destroy or damage, people. The idea here is to recycle, folks! ;) Erm, go green, peeps?

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You know what I did last Deepavali

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Work Room chat:
I'm sure you have heard about going on cruises for holiday. But have you heard of bead cruise? And what do you do on a bead cruise? Why, bead of course! Pretty obvious from the name of the cruise isn't it? Doing your favourite thing while on a cruise holiday. Life sure can't get any better than this! Too bad it's such cruises are not available in Malaysia which I don't see why we can't especially with Star Cruises just around the corner. That's one luxurious jewellery making class for you.

p/s: The school holiday started today and yesterday was officially my last day teaching in the kindy. Yes, folks, I just quit and I'm now blogging and making jewellery full time. My bread and butter, if you want to put it that way. Not because I hated my job but there's something else that I wanted to do more. How insane cool is that to be un self employed? Total madness! o_O Now, if you'll excuse me, think I might just need to find more ways to earn me-self a decent living.
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Malacca!

Was at Malacca for the Deepavali weekend break with mum at my bro's place.

Ever since I started making jewellery, bead shopping almost definitely will be on the to-do list.

How could you not think about beads when you are going to a place like Malacca? The rich nyonya heritage and and nyonya shoes are what Malacca is famous for.





So, basically, I am hoping to be able to find a great variety of glass seed beads since that is mainly what those nyonya shoes are all about. Very intricate beading. What I was hoping even more, was to find a great variety of it AND at a very 'attractive' price. All these while, I get my glass seed beads from Ipoh. There's not many shops in Ipoh selling Japanese glass seed beads. Even they do, choices are rather limited. The same goes for Jusco.

Now that we are on the topic of Japanese glass seed beads. The Japanese seed beads are renowned for its uniformity in sizes and large varieties of colors and finishes which are unmatched to date by other bead factories in the world. They come in several standard sizes with 12/0 being the size commonly used for jewelry making. These are the 2mm size beads. Their productions are limited as there are only few manufacturers in Japan and they are much sought after by fashion designers and crafters all over the world. The three largest manufacturer in Japan are Miyuki, Matsuno and Toho.

Within the range of Japanese seed beads, the creme de la creme is the Delica beads from Miyuki. Delica beads feature a very even finished cone with astoundingl unifprmity. They are very easy to bead as the holes are very even in size. I've mentioned about seed bead comparisons in one of my earlier post. That is why they are favoured by beaders all around the world. If you don't do much of bead stitching or bead weaving, this might not concern you too much. But if you do stitches like brick stitch and peyote stitch, you'll understand how the uniformity of the beads will affect you work. Even beads from Matsuno and Toho would occasionally require some culling work but there will be none at all when you are working with the Delicas.

Culling means sieving through the beads, making sure that the beads which you are using for your work are at the very least of similar sizes if not the same. Yes, even with Matsuno and Toho beads. I've done some occasional culling work when I'm doing bead stitching. That's when I'm so obsessed with perfection. But now that I've loosen up a little, the discrepency is actually not all that obvious .

The thing about culling work is it's very time consuming and it definately will add on to the time frame for the completion of a project. I've already heard from one of my aunt that they definately will do some culling with the beads prior to stringing them into balls of thread with beads for bead crochet last time. When I first heard about it and with minimal knowledge on jewellery making, it wass horror and a nightmare to me. That sounded almost like insanity! I was initially working with Chinese seed beads and culling those beads seems almost nerve wrecking if not impossible!

Yes, those Chinese seed beads are indeed that horrible to work with. That is why I've since stopped using them altogether. No more Chinese seed beads for me, thank you very much. Yes, Japanese seed beads cost much more but it's so worthy of your money.

Needless the say, you would undoubtedly expect the delicas to come in a heftier price tag, which is true anyway. The most exclusive collection of Delica beads is coated with precious metal, e.g. gold and platinum. (That's the Japanese for you!) They are much more expensive than the ordinary Delica beads. No joke! I've seen them sold in those overseas site.

Actually, you'll find most of the overseas site that sells Japanese glass seed beads carrying the Miyuki Delicas range. I've yet to actually come across any local bead stores, online or brick and mortar, that carries any of the Delicas. Most of them carry beads from Matsuno or Toho. Therefore, I have not personally seen any of those Delicas before. Even shops that do sell Miyuki, it's just those ordinary rocailles i.e. the round ones or shapes like cube, the three cut triangle ones or the hex cut ones but none of Delicas. I guess the shop carries these beads to cater to people who do bead embroidery and not so much for jewellery making. Admittedly, the Delicas, due to its squarish cut may not be as appealing for bead embroidery as those round ones.

If you are interested to know about the manufacturing process of seed beads from raw material to products, Miyuki's site here offers a very detailed explanation. It involves a very lengthy process and it shouldn't be a wonder anymore why it's pricier.

I was hoping to 'bump' into Delicas in Malacca but I wasn't the least surprised that all I found was Toho

I remembered Wendy from Diary of a Miniature Enthusiast compiled a directory of some sort of the bead shops that she has been to around Malaysia. I remembered seeing Malacca on that list and found An Yang in Jalan Bunga Raya. Well, I didn't find it. My bro did.



I quote her description of the shop
"The most variety of seed beads found in all the bead shops i've been to. Be it in Malaysia or not. Imagine the entire wall from ceiling to floor, shop front to shop end, an entire display of different packets of seed beads. Then you're at the right shop."

When I first entered the shop I was already looking around at the walls with great expectations and I sure did not see display of different packets of seed beads neither on the walls, from ceiling to floor nor shop front to shop end. No sight of packets of beads can be seen at all!

So, I asked the sales assistance about it. Then only did I realized the An Yang that I walked into is their branch that sells flowers. The An Yang that sells beads is in another branch, which is just across the road! No wonder there's so many flowers displayed at the entrance.

(Malacca roads are insanely narrow by the way!)

I walked across the road, found the shop, walked right in and lo and behold!







Indeed a display of different packets of seed beads, from ceiling to floor! Although I wouldn't agree with the shop front to the shop end part because the seed beads section is actually only at the back portion of the shop. But the thiing is, this shop is what I would say as a huge craft store! So, even if it's only at the back portion of the shop, it is still a rather big area. It is also a bead shop with the most varieties from all the bead shops that I've been to, which is, ok .... not that many to begin with. -______-

There were some charms, findings and chains but like I said, some only. None of which that interest me much. It is after all a craft store rather than a bead shop. The amount and variety of materials that they sell is the most I have seen from all the craft store that I've ever been into. That place is like an craftsman haven!

Although it was I who initially wanted to go there to get some beads but my bro also ended up getting his wedding favours from there. The sell these really adorably small and cute packages with soft gel sweets in them. Too bad I forgotten to take any pictures of them. My bro ended up getting a hamper like package but that were adorably small and cute. I'll try to take a picture of it when he brings it back for his wedding.

Ouh..... I'm degressing already.... o_O

So, as I was saying, I found a great variety of seed beads, alright. The prices were not exactly that attractive but still, it didn't stop me from getting something.

Well, this is what I ended up getting.



To know how much it cost me, you can start punching on the calculator. The prices are all shown in the picture. If you're lazy to take out the calculator, I'll just tell you. It costs me both my arms and legs.
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Naah, just joking. Only an arm and a leg.
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No, seriously. RM56.50 for 7 tiny packets of beads. I don't even have a clue what I'll be doing with them yet! -_______-

But then the beads are just so pretty that I couldn't resist it! I had to actually tried very hard to stop myself from buying more. They are Japanese glass seed beads after all .........

And just in case you are wondering, the beads that they sell are from Toho.

When one of my relative in Malacca heard that I came all the way to buy beads, she told me I don't really need to because she knows a place where you can also get a lot of beads.(But then, I didn't really went all the way JUST to buy beads also)Well, she didn't told me exactly where yet, so I've yet to know where.

But of course, that is not all that I did in Malacca.

Savouring all these........

Bamboo clam

Hairy cockerel - have you tasted a cockerel this big?


Scrumptious!

While staring into...............

*sigh* ...........

Tell me life's not a bliss........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Habis! Remember to go to the Portugese settlement for their seafood when you drop by Malacca the next time!

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