Sue Beads

Today is the day for another reveal for the AJE Component of the Month!  This month, Francesca Watson provided us with her wonderful dichroic glass cabochons.  She gave us the choice of having them in cabochon form, or drilled.  Here are the very tempting choices she gave us!


I chose the blue cabochon on to top second to the right.  I decided to keep mine a cabochon. 

 It is really hard to photogragh all the gorgeous dichroic colors that are in this cabochon.  My first idea was for me to do a beaded bezel with it.  Between visiting my 92 year old grandfather in Florida for a week, and a quick little getaway to Baltimore with my boyfriend, and Bead Fest prep, it just did not happen.
My second idea, then, was put a bail on this cab, and do a beaded necklace.  Not too fancy, just a wire wrapped one with my own lampwork beads as accents.  That did not happen either.  I wasn't at all happy with that idea, and just about gave up.  It just wasn't going to do the cab justice.

 Finall…

When I posted my necklace design with Jenny's Component of the Month, I used kumihimo braid.  I make a thin braid with C-lon and didn't want to use a bulky end cap, so I decided to figure out how to wire wrap the ends.  Some people were interested in seeing a tutorial on how to do this, so here it is!  The one I made for the piece was a messy wrap - here I'm going to demonstrate a fairly neat wrap!


This tutorial is really similar to any wire wrapping you would do with ball chain, rhinestone chain, or any material that doesn't have a clear and viable loop.

Materials Needed:  Kumihimo braid, 6-8" patinated copper wire

Tools Needed:  Two pair chain nose pliers, round nose pliers, wire cutters, embroidery scissors

Here is the braid and the wire.  I think I used 22 gauge wire - it needs to be strong enough to hold your cord, but workable too!

 Slide your wire into the middle of the braid - make sure that you get it in between strands of the cord, because t…