Half Tila Herringbone Bracelet

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• Half Tila beads "Matte Metallic Dark Bronze" (HT-2006)
• Half Tila beads "Matte Metallic Patina" (HT-2008)

I finally learned a beading technique that I had wanted to learn for a long time. I've seen photos of these bracelets all over Pinterest and loved the look but I hadn't seen an English video tutorial until just recently. A while back I tried to follow an Italian YouTube tutorial but ended up hopelessly lost and gave up on it. Now I've found three YouTube video tutorials that are in English. They're all very similar but each one does something slightly differently than the others. All three of them use SuperDuos with 11/0 seed beads but I wanted to use Half Tila beads after seeing THIS pretty bracelet pattern for sale on Etsy. The bracelet in the Italian video that I watched is made with Half Tilas. After watching all three of the English videos and trying out the technique for myself, I discovered that I had a PDF pattern on my computer. It's a free one that I got from THIS site. You don't have to buy anything to download the free pattern but you will need to create an account.


UPDATE: I found another pattern for this design HERE on Etsy.

Here are the links to the three English YouTube videos:

How to Stitch Herringbone with Two Hole Beads - Beadaholique

Make a SuperDuo Knit Herringbone Bracelet - Potomac Bead Company

DIY-Herringbone Stitch with SuperDuos - Gail Deluca/Jewel School

HERE is the link to the Italian video that I mentioned. This is the only video that I know of that features Half Tila beads instead of SuperDuos but the method is the same so that doesn't really matter.

If you want to try something a little different, Sam Wescott has a tutorial with her tweaks to the Potomac Beads tutorial HERE.

The technique for using Half Tilas instead of SuperDuos is basically the same except that you need to use 15/0 seed beads instead of 11/0 beads. That is mentioned in one of the videos but I don't remember which one. 

I love the feel of the Half Tila bracelet. It's very smooth and slinky almost like chain mail. I like the width of the Etsy bracelet better than the much wider version that they make in all of the videos so that's how I made my bracelets and most of my samples. At the top of this post you can see the first complete bracelet that I made.

I decided to try adding a button clasp on the first one because I hadn't worked out how to attach another kind of clasp yet. It does work but it's too big and bulky for the thin bracelet. The button probably weighs more than the whole bracelet. On my second bracelet below I added my usual clasp loop and a magnet clasp and it's much better than the button clasp for this particular bracelet. 

Below is the second bracelet that I made. It's a little tricky guessing the length to make these bracelets and this one came out much too long for me. I will have to re-make it sometime and will remove that odd bead when I do. Can you spot it in the photos at the bottom of this post? There is one that isn't the same color as the rest. That bead had gotten mixed in with the ones that I was using and I couldn't tell them apart in the dim light the night that I made the bracelet.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• Half Tila beads "Matte Black" (HT-401F)
• Half Tila beads "Matte Metallic Copper" (HT-2005)

To make a bracelet the width of mine, it takes about 4 1/2 to 5 grams of Half Tila beads. You'll also need about 2 1/2 to 3 yards of thread and that's plenty for making clasp loops and reinforcing the bracelet. I used Nymo D thread for mine. My bracelets are half an inch wide.

Below is the bead information for the samples that I made:

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• Half Tila beads "Matte Black AB" (HT-401FR)
• Half Tila beads "Metallic Purple Green Iris" (HT-455)

I made the above sample with three rows which is one row wider than all of my others and one row narrower than the ones in the videos. It's still too wide for my taste.

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• Half Tila beads "Metallic Dark Bronze" (HT-457)
• Half Tila beads "Matte Metallic Khaki Iris" (HT-2035)

• 15/0 seed beads "Hematite" (no info available)
• Half Tila beads "Light Amethyst Gold Luster" (HT-316)
• Half Tila beads "Purple Gray Rainbow Luster" (HT-1898)

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• Half Tila beads "Opaque Lilac Gold" (HT-1867)
• Half Tila beads "Metallic Dark Bronze" (HT-457)

After making lots of samples with Half Tila beads, I decided to give SuperDuos a try. As it turns out, I'm not keen on the SuperDuo version even though I like how they look in the photos that I've seen online. The stitching seems very loose and I don't like the feel of the bracelet very well. I might give it one more go sometime as a very narrow bracelet and see how I like it that way. Below are two samples that I made using SuperDuos. One has traditional SuperDuo beads and I made the other one with the smooth kind of SuperDuos.

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Bright Bronze" (221)
• SuperDuo beads "Matte Purple Gold Iris"

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Metallic Bronze Antique Gold" (225)
• Smooth SuperDuo beads "Picasso Collage Mix"