Free Video Tutorial: Queens Jubilee Earrings

On June 2, HERE, I blogged about the bracelet above that I'd made using some beautiful blue montees that Dolly Smith sent me. I love that bracelet and I wanted to make myself a pair of earrings to go with it and use some of the leftover montees on them. I have four left so I could even make two different pairs of earrings. While looking through my folder of YouTube video tutorial links yesterday, I noticed that Kelly Dale's "Queens Jubilee Earrings" have montees in the centers of them. Although she used larger montees, I thought I might be able to make mine work with a little tweaking. I also didn't have any 6mm round black druks so I used some 6mm black fire polished beads instead. They did work but the result was a lot of open space around the beads.

Because my montee was smaller than what Kelly's pattern calls for, I had to connect it to the earring with three seed beads on each side of the "cross" instead of two. That worked just fine. While I like the unique shape of the earring I wasn't happy with the way the seed beads looked. There was way too much contrast between the bright bronze seed beads and the black bicones. All I could see were the seed beads as you can see below:

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (15-457)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (11-457)
• 3.9mm "Blue" Montee
• 6mm fire polished beads "Black Jet"
• 3mm bicones "Black"
• 4mm bicones "Black"

For my next experiment, I tried some 6x8mm royal blue rondelles that were about the same color as the montees. They did fit the earring a lot better but I still don't like it much either. It's a little too gaudy for my taste and there's still too much contrast between the dark beads and the seed beads. Oh, and I added an 8/0 seed bead at the top of this earring for a jump ring.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (15-457)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (11-457)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (8-457)
• 3.9mm "Blue" Montee
• 6x8mm rondelle "Royal Blue"
• 3mm bicones "Black"
• 4mm bicones "Black"

I wasn't quite ready to give up on Kelly's pattern so I thought I'd give it one more try using druks and bicones that would be about the same color tone as the seed beads. I'm really pleased with this sample and I will make a pair for myself. The design is a little busy and fancy-looking but in a fun sort of way. It's grungy and sparkly at the same time and I love that look. I did have to come up with a substitute for the center montee and I figured out a way to use a 3mm druk. The result is very soft and feminine.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (15-457D)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (8-457D)
• 3mm druk "Bronze"
• 6mm druks "Opaque Gold and Smoky Topaz Luster"
• 3mm bicones "Silk AB" (I got these from China)
• 4mm bicones "Champagne Silver AB" (I got these from China)

The two changes that I made to Kelly's pattern were to the top loop and the center embellishment. For the top loop, I exited the 4mm bicone as Kelly directs but I picked up three 11/0 seed beads, an 8/0 seed bead and three more 11/0 seed beads and went back around through the bicone to make a loop. I went around the loop again and skipped the 8/0 bead to make it pop out. I reinforced the loop several times.

For the center embellishment, I actually added it at the end because I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I first started making the earring. I'm pretty sure that it will work to add it in the beginning when you would normally add the montee. I started by coming out of a 6mm druk going toward the outer edge of the earring on what would be one of the sides. I picked up twelve 15/0 seed beads and went diagonally across the earring and through the outside hole of the druk on the opposite side. This put me in the right position for adding the string of seed beads that would cross in the other direction from the top to bottom of the earring. For that string, I picked up four 15/0 seed beads, a 3mm druk and four more seed beads. I once again went diagonally across to the other side and went through the druk on the bottom of the earring. I wove back around through the two strings of beads a couple more times to pull them nice and snug. When I added the first string of twelve beads, it looked like it was going to be too many beads but it wasn't. That's because the druk in the center of the crossing string of beads pushes the bottom string of beads down into the hole in the center and makes them fit just right.

You can watch Kelly's video HERE or you can buy the pattern from her Etsy shop HERE. You can get an idea of the size of the earring in the picture below: