Pattern Review: Marquesa Earrings

The "Marquesa Earrings" pattern is by Angie Martin of Nanny Pink's Passion on Etsy.  The pattern can be found on THIS page. UPDATE: This pattern is no longer available.

I haven't made a final pair of earrings yet but I did made quite a few samples in different colors. With the pattern, you'll create a pretty bezel for a 14mm rivoli stone. The earrings are about 1 1/4 inches long and almost an inch wide. They're not tiny by any means, but they're not huge either. I like the size of them but they are a little bit heavy due to the weight of the rivoli stones. I love the earrings but I did discover that not all SuperDuo beads work well with the design. It works best with SuperDuos that aren't too fat and glossy and are more thin and tapered. As you'll see below, I had trouble with some bronze luster SuperDuos and the bezel didn't turn out quite right. All of the other kinds that I used worked perfectly.

The tutorial includes clear, large photos of each step. This is great but it does create a problem. Unless you can follow the tutorial on a tablet computer or a laptop, you'll have to print out 25 pages of instructions. It was relatively easy to follow the tutorial once I understood what the instructions were saying to do in some of the steps. I like these earrings so well that I've ordered some more 14mm rivolis so that I can make more color combinations. I was limited to just some red and some amethyst stones for my samples.

For my first sample below, I made the loop at the top for the wire as directed by the pattern. As you'll see in the rest of my samples, I've tweaked the loop so that I can connect my wires with jump rings. All I did was replace the center seed bead called for in the instructions with an 8/0 seed bead instead of an 11/0 bead. The loops on some of my earring wires were a little too small to fit easily around the seed beads of the earring loop. I quite like this color combination.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 14mm rivoli "Amethyst"
• 4mm druks "Bronze"
• SuperDuo beads "Pastel Cream"

The next earring is the one that gave me some trouble. The SuperDuo beads were too fat so I had a hard time getting the bezel closed around the rivoli. It kept popping back out and the stitching was too loose. I did eventually get the bezel closed but you can see that the opening around the stone is a bit too wide compared to my other samples. The opening is much too loose, but you can't see that in the photo.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 14mm rivoli "Amethyst"
• 4mm druks "Amethyst"
• SuperDuo beads "Crystal Gold Luster"

This one is one of my favorites. I used red and green but I don't think it looks too Christmasy. Everything worked perfectly in this sample.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 14mm rivoli "Red"
• 4mm druks "Bronze"
• SuperDuo beads "Red Dark Travertin"

This one also came out a little loose but not as bad as the bronze one above. I'm not sure what caused it with this one because the SuperDuos have a almost a matte finish. This isn't one of my favorites because I think that the pearls are too bright and stand out too much.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 14mm rivoli "Red"
• 4mm pearls "Beige" (Beads One)
• SuperDuo beads "Crystal Bronze Pale Gold"

I like this one because none of the bead colors stand out too much and there's enough "metal" to make them look like real jewelry.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 14mm rivoli "Amethyst"
• 4mm druks "Bronze"
• SuperDuo beads "Jet Bronze Picasso"

I tried something a little different with the last two samples. I was getting tired of working with red and amethyst rivolis so I thought I'd see if I could get the pattern to work with 12mm ones. In the first sample below, I added a faux "prong" of three seed beads at the top of the bezel to help hold the stone in place. That did help but the bottom has a huge ugly gap. I do love the colors of this one though so I might make a pair like this but with the tweak that I added to the last sample.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 12mm rivoli "Seal"
• 4mm druks "Bronze"
• SuperDuo beads "Metallic Suede Gold"

I don't like the earring below quite as well as the previous one but I solved the problem of the stone not fitting right at the top and bottom of the bezel. The bezel is very secure and there are no gaps around the rivoli. The only drawback is that the stone doesn't show very much with the extra seed beads above and below it. I haven't decided yet if I really like the look of it. Those seed beads around the stone make it look a little busy. What do you think of it?

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 12mm rivoli "Seal"
• 4mm druks "Bronze"
• SuperDuo beads "Blue Turquoise Bronze Picasso"