I designed this class to accomplish three things: learn three foundational techniques: the "basic frame"; continuous loops & doubled continuous loops; and crossover loops. Everything else is pretty much a variation on those. Secondly I wanted the project to be fun and easy for lampworkers unused to working with small seed beads, a goal considerably helped by the fact that the beads are worked on a single length of wire that acts as its own needle, support and shaping; in effect french beaded flowers is a form of wire-wrapping in which the beads ride along the wire as a decorative covering. Finally, I wanted to make the project somewhat relevant to lampworking, which I did both by using a lampwork bead as the center, and bent mandrels (all beadmakers always have a plentiful assortment of those:) for the stem wire.
Perhaps the simplest part of the project is to make the leaves, which are constructed with crossover loops; then the ruff, and sepal, with continuous and doubled continuous loops respectively; and finally the petals, which are "round bottom" "pointed top" basic frames: the wire wraps around a central strand to achieve this larger component.
french beaded flower
french beaded flower
french beaded flower
photography 12nov08, post 21jan09
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
