srrenf

Reinforcing a spiral rope

You might ask why one would do this. Maybe the spiral rope you are making is using only light beads in it. If you make spiral rope with Ann Hawley's directions with a delica or 11/0 seed as the core, the tension alone might make it unnecesary as long as you stick to just delicas. I like using bigger beads in the core(8/0 or 6/0 seeds) and use 5 mor 6 delicas or 11/0 seed in the shell. It works the same as in AnnHawley's directions, you just add one of the 8/0 seeds and 5 11/0 seeds in each cycle. you still cycled back 3 core beads. You can replace one or more of the seed with heavier beads like miniteardrops (Viewing the Northern Lights), Miyuki fringe beads (Beached Seal, Cobalt Wave) or pearls. The link below shows a pearl necklace I made with 1-2 of the seeds replaced with these wonderful, irregular real pearls I bought on ebay.

pearl spiral rope

http://www.halseytrading.com/customers'_creations.htm

In order to use these heavier beads in the shell, more than one pass of thread is required to make the necklace secure and hold together. You can't just go to heavier thread because you need to pass 4 times through the core beads. the solution is to reinforce the shell layer alone after you are done. If just light to medium weight beads are used I use Nymo O. For the Pearl spiral and for Viewing the Northern Lights I used Nymo B (and a #12 beading needle). I use Silamide for the construction of the spiral rope because ther I get away with a #10 beading needle and Silamide comes in a lot of colors. With the larger beads, the reinforcing just makes it look better also. See below

The spiral rope on top has been reinforced, but the bottom one hasn't (yet). Kind of droopy and loose. The method described below approximates a 3-drop square stitch.

In the drawings below the core beads are the grey ones and the red are the shell beads. the core beads are shown vertical to the shell beads, but in reality the core beads lie at a 45 degree angle to the shell beads.

You tie on a new thread (black X) and go throught the core beads to the first row of shell beads you want to reinforce. You enter it (1)and go to the end. You loop across and go around the next rosat the second from last bead in that row (2). Go to the end of that row(2), then go across at the second from the last bead in the first row. Enter ther and go up (3). Now you go across again at the end of the row to between the first and the second bead in the second row.

Instead of going down like you did before, you go up through the first bead in the second row and then across to the the second bead in the third row.

Once you go across to the the third row, you enter the second bead in that row and go down (4). You go top the end of the third row and go across to the second from last bead in row 2 and then enter it and go up(5). You go to the end of row 2 again and repeat the stip up from before. You go acrros to row 3 , but instead of goign down like you did in thread pass 4 you gom up and acroos to row 4. Thread passes 6 and 7 are the same pattern as passes 2 and 3.

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	You tie on a new thread (black X) and go throught the core beads to the first row of shell beads you want to reinforce. You enter it (1)and go to the end. You loop across and go around the next rosat the second from last bead in that row (2). Go to the end of that row(2), then go across at the second from the last bead in the first row. Enter ther and go up (3). Now you go across again at the end of the row to between the first and the second bead in the second row.
	Instead of going down like you did before, you go up through the first bead in the second row and then across to the the second bead in the third row.
	Once you go across to the the third row, you enter the second bead in that row and go down (4). You go top the end of the third row and go across to the second from last bead in row 2 and then enter it and go up(5). You go to the end of row 2 again and repeat the stip up from before. You go acrros to row 3 , but instead of goign down like you did in thread pass 4 you gom up and acroos to row 4. Thread passes 6 and 7 are the same pattern as passes 2 and 3.