Playing with my Beads...

I tried another beaded bezel pattern yesterday with mixed results. This one is the "Captured Crystal Cubes Earrings" from Beading Daily. You can get the free tutorial HERE. I like the earrings in the original photo on the Beading Daily site but their stones are a slightly different shape than the ones I used. The bezel doesn't fit quite the same on my stones. Here is the original photo:

I hadn't done herringbone stitch before so the other night I practiced the stitch on a larger stone with 11/0 seed beads instead of 15/0's. That was very easy to work but too large for an earring. 

The tutorial doesn't say what kind of thread to use but I knew that it would have to be very fine because of the number of times you pass through the tiny 15/0 beads. For my first sample, I used Nymo B thread and it was very tough getting through the beads after the first few rounds. Nymo D thread would never work for this pattern. It was such a struggle that I was going to give up on the pattern but today I gave it one more go with 6lb FireLine. That did help a bit and it gave me neater-looking stitches.

I didn't like the loop that they made for the earring wires so I tried a couple of different things. I'm not happy with either of them either. At this point I doubt if I'll make a pair of these earrings. The larger version might make a pretty pendant though if I can work out a way to add a jump ring to connect it to a chain.

In the photo at the top of this post, the sample on the far left is the one I did with FireLine. The photo below shows how pretty the design looks on the back of the bezel.