Native American Fringe Earrings - Purple & Turquoise

• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Pewter" (4222)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (DB1852)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Opaque Mulberry" (DB662)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Matte Asparagus Aqua Glazed" (DB391)
• 11/0 Miyuki Delica beads "Matte Opaque Sea Foam Glazed Luster" (DB374)

After making the red fringe earrings that I blogged about yesterday, HERE, I was excited to try some other Brick stitch and fringe designs. This time I adapted one of Anna Belous's free patterns. You can see the original chart on her blog HERE. I obviously made my fringe much shorter and I also changed the shape of the top part of the earring.

I was blown away when I saw how pretty these turned out. They're so delicate and light and fun to wear. I actually chose the bead colors randomly without putting a lot of thought into it. I guess I got lucky because they work very nicely together. I think that the hints of shiny silver add the perfect touch and I plan to add metallic beads whenever I make these kinds of earrings in the future.

The thing about making earrings of this type is that there really aren't many tutorials for making a specific design from start to finish. The idea seems to be to learn the basic Brick stitch techniques then find or create your own design charts for the tops of the earrings. Anna's blog will give you lots of great ideas for designs. I tend to like smaller earrings and I was able to easily adapt many of Anna's charts to make them a bit smaller. I've already created about ten different charts that I plan to try soon. 

I also found a free software program called Easy Bead Patterns which is great for making charts for Brick stitch and Peyote stitch. The program also has a template called "Loom" which works well for designing the fringes. You can download the program from the link below.

Easy Bead Patterns

Here is an example of an earring chart that I made with Easy Bead Patterns:

That's the bead chart for the red and blue earrings that I blogged about yesterday.

You can buy Delica beads at Red Panda, Aura Crystals, Supply Emporium and Baubles & Beads.