Getting Acquainted with Multi-holed Beads

** the links above will take you to The Beading Room’s catalogue where you can check out the luscious colour choices! (Photos courtesy of czechbeads.com.)

 If you’ve not explored the possibilities of multi-hole beads for beading projects, you’re missing out on the magic of these incredibly versatile and relatively recent additions to beading.

Along with offering the time savings that come with slightly or significantly larger sizes compared to our traditional seed beads, they open up an entire new world of shapes and styles, and enhance jewellery as well as non-jewellery bead embroidery designs, with possibilities for loom beading, too.

Most echo geometric shapes – round, square, rectangular, hexagonal – while some reference organic shapes, such as the Ginkgo and Crescent beads. (I adore the Ginkgo – it’s a timeless classic shape.)

Multi-hole glass beads – they offer 2, 3, and 4-hole shapes – of which The Beading Room stocks 50+, are described as follows by CzechMates®, one of our suppliers:

“The CzechMates® Beading System was created by Nichole Starman to provide beaders with innovative beads that work together perfectly. Known as ‘the building blocks of modern beading,’ each bead in the CzechMates® system features uniform hole-spacing, for wonderfully structured 3D beaded designs.”

Multi-holed beads have now expanded numbering more than 50 different shapes and sizes, with an incredible choice of yummy colours and finishes, including Picasso, luster, metallic, magic, and more.

So, what makes these beads magical? It’s the way they nestle together, the way they introduce new shape possibilities that transform the impact of an earring, bracelet, or necklace.

Below you’ll find links to patterns and tutorials that can launch your exploration of multi-hole beads.

• Check out Nichole Starman’s Technique Guide to using multi-holed beads. The first 10 pages offer tips and techniques and the remaining share bead lists. Here’s a bit more about Nicole Starman:
  
  “Nichole has been an integral part of the industry wholesaling Czech glass since the year 2000. She has produced some of the world’s most notable styles and colors of beads. Nichole loves the infinite possibilities using the bead color palette to create wearable works of art.”

• Check out this Youtube - Flat Herringbone with two-hole beads with Jo Barclay Loggie, who also sells patterns on Etsy. This bracelet pattern flexibly adapts to using Super Duo, Quarter Tilas or Half Tilas to make a lovely bracelet, with a slightly different look depending on which two-hole bead you select.

• Check out this book – Stitching with Two-Hole Shaped Beads – by Virginia Jensen, for earring, bracelet and necklace ideas. Virginia has also penned the Best of Two-hole Bead Stitching.

•  Check out the free patterns available from Czech Beads:

Dream of the Queen, (left by trendsetter Zsuzsanna Erdei), and Chrysanthemum, (by Nichole Starman) are only two of the free patterns available at the link.

• To find all 52 multi-hole bead shapes available from The Beading Room, go to the Beads file, and in the drop-down box, you will see Czech Glass Multi-hole Beads.

Have fun planning and shopping for a multi-hole project – and prepare to be amazed at how quickly you can whip up an impressive looking piece of jewellery.

Until next month, my bead-loving friends, Cathy