Seed Bead Loom Bracelets

When I was a little kid....maybe 7 or 8 I had a small bead loom that was given to me for Christmas one year. I used it quite a bit but never got really fast at it or completed many projects. A few weeks ago I decided to give it another try and have had much more success.

My first attempt is the black and gold narrow one on the left of the picture. The weaving was a bit loose and a few ends of threads show. The way that I finished the ends are really rough. I left all of my extra warp threads on one end of the work so one side did not have much thread to work with to add any sort of clasp.

My second piece is the wide turtle piece. The weaving came out really good, its tighter and I surprised myself by being able to follow the more complicated pattern. I centered the work so I had warp threads on both ends to use to attach my clasp. Actually attaching the clasp was still a challenge, I didn't have any jump rings or crimp beads and trying to tie it all off just became messy.

So off to youtube I went and found a tutorial on how to end the weaving and attach a clasp without having it look cruddy. The problem being the directions were specifically for work with 8 warp threads so it limited my designs. I made two bracelets using this method and it worked well. One is a rainbow chevron pattern and the other sort a geometric design....I just forgot to take pictures of them.

Now I am onto my next piece. I really wanted to try out this ladybug pattern. I modified it from a peyote stitch pattern that I found and figured out how to work it on the loom. I have 12 warp threads and have come up with a plan to use the crimp beads and modify the plan from the 8 warp threads to end this one. I am going to do groups of 3 warp threads, cross two of those sets and crimp them together. Then the outer two sets of three will be ended just like on the 8 thread design I have been practicing. I'll come back and add some more pics and updates when I get more done.