One of the great aspects about jewellery making is the constant development of new bead shapes and sizes. Experimentation with new products is the greatest fun. However, most new glass beads are developed for the bead weaving and bead embroidery market, so they are not all suitable for kumihimo. The size of the hole is of particular importance in kumihimo. S-Lon/C-Lon is the most popular cord for use with beaded braiding and the 0.5mm size is both the most widely available and is produced in the greatest number of colours. The good news about O Beads is that the hole is pretty sizeable and the cord slides through with ease!
For this design I used my new On the Edge tutorial. Instead of Long Drop beads I used O Beads and I like the result. In the classic colours of black, silver and copper it has an understated effect, but wouldn’t it look great in moody purples or spring pastels? O Beads come in a lovely range of colours, so all sorts of combinations are possible. I have got a few other ideas at the development stage and I will be interested to see how they work out. Sometimes, what seems to be a brilliant idea just doesn’t work at all. I had thought that O Beads would be great used on the ridge of a 12 warp Spiral Braid, but when I tried to put it into practise it simply looked wrong!