Spring Bead Together at Janice's in Alexandria, Virginia

Saturday, April 21, 2018
Alexandria, Virginia
Learning to Knot Pearls

This is us with just one having to leave early....

We had such a fun day beading together. I invited anyone who lived nearby (I live now in Alexandria, Virginia) to come for the day and learn to pearl knot. We had a nice turnout of ten...just the right size for the community room of my complex. 

I shared with everyone my all-time favorite and essential technique: Pearl Knotting. My theory is if you can get comfortable with making knots, you can string and design anything. It's that first knot that is challenging. We have some great, class handouts you can download that really go over everything. There's our classic, Pearl Knotting and our more advanced, Gem Knotting....both worth a read. There is also Tin Cup, which uses a floating bead technique....also worth a read!

We all made necklaces using freshwater pearls, a lovely silver metal bead by Nunn Design and a lobster claw clasp. I teach an age-old method of knotting that doesn't require any tools...just  pre-string your beads and then knot one at a time. The end tips we used (.036mm) have an extra large hole, so we needed to add an 11/0 seed bead inside each bead tip to keep the double knot of the doubled Micro C-lon from slipping through. 

Everyone makes a few mistakes when they first start knotting, but with time and practice, the knots get closer together. Like anything worth doing, knotting takes practice!

We used Micro C-Lon and a Flexible Eye Needle

Freshwater Pearls and a Nunn Faceted Barrel Bead

Finished Necklace

I added one of my jewelry tags with the clasp

Old Fashioned Silk Thread

Tin Cup Floats using Griffin Silk

I'm not sure where the time went. It just flew by. There was so much to go over! I talked about old-fashioned silk and using Griffin to create floating necklaces. Much of this is covered in the handouts I linked at the beginning of the blog. 
We promised to get together sooner rather than wait a whole year. I'm in favor! It's definitely made me excited to teach pearl knotting, gem knotting and floats on Facebook Live! More samples and planning needed but this was just pure fun. Thanks everyone! 

~janice