Antique Steel Cut Bead Fringe Brick Stitch Earrings

 The details of how I reclaimed, cleaned and readied these antique steel beads is a story for another post. This one provides the details of the brick stitch fringe earrings, mostly so I can make another pair in case I lose the information that I scratched out on a sticky note.

I wish I had not chose a fringe earring as my first project with these fabulous beads. My inital aim was a brick stitch diamond, but once I got halfway done, I had an urge to see and feel how the beads acclimate to fringe. And so that's how it started... The reason I wish I hadn't started with this style is because they took a long time. Longer than usual.

These beads are reclaimed from an antique (about 100 year old) french cut steel bead purse that was in bad repair. Although it may look ok in the picture, the thread was rotting and falling apart. The purse had fringe, so I chose to recreate the fringe bead pattern in my earrings. The purse had twisted bead fringe, very common for that time period, but I wasn't feeling ambitious enough for that yet, so I went with the straight variety. (link to twisted bead fringe tutorial if you are interested to understand how to make this) 

The steel cut beads I salvaged for this project are of two varieties - rounded silver colored and cut gold colored. I call them 'steel' beads because them are salvaged from a cut steel bead purse, but neither of these two varieties I used are magnetic. The third variety of steel bead from the same bag (the shiny silver ones) are magnetic and smooth, shaped like cylinder beads. They were not used in this earring project.

I started the brick stitch base using 6 lb fireline, my typical thread selection for this type of earring. Within a few rows, it was very evident it would not be the right thread for these beads. The beads are super light weight and very tiny - comparable to glass size 15 beads. I measured the beads to come up with this comparison and there are about 25 per inch which corresponds to size 15. The fireline was too stiff, thick and didn't have enough give for the beads. 

In the photo above, you can see the fireline is making it difficult for the beads in the 3 drop ladder stitch base to sit side by side. And what you can't see is that it feels stiff. Not only that, but the bead holes already feel full, which means if I continue stitching, I'll likely end up splitting the thread inside the beads - which weakens the thread and also can cause knots which may end up causing more problems later. I abandoned this attempt before I got any further. I switched to KO thread 330 dtex in beige. This is a link to the beige K.O. beading thread on Amazon. I am using a size 12 John James beading needle.

 

This is the new base with KO thread. If you're interested in knowing why I switched to K.O. thread and its' characteristics, refer to my K.O. Thread Review for details. Notice how the beads are sitting closer together and don't look as tortured into place? It's much more flexible.

Here the triangle base is taking shape. After the 9 column base of 3 drop ladder stitch, I transitioned to 2 drop brick stitch for the rest of the rows. When I was down to three rows, I added five beads to make a loop that will be used to attach the earring to the finding.

The working thread was then woven back through to the ladder base to begin the fringe. 

I gave little thought to the design and made it up as I went along. The body and half the fringe are the round silver colored beads. The bottom of the fringe are the cut gold colored beads. This matches the design of the fringe on the original bag.

The fringe is not perfectly graduated. Since the bead sizes are only roughly even, I had to make minor adjustments to the number of beads used in each strand of finge. My goal was around 1.5 inch of fringe. the end of the fringe is finished with a three bead picot instead of a single end bead.

To make the 3 bead picot (which forms a little cross shape), skip the last 3 beads when you start going back through the beads to complete the strand of fringe. I found it helpful to use my needle to pull on the center bead of the picot (2 pictures up) to help straighten the length of fringe and maneuver the picot beads to lay correctly. 

 The number and types of beads in each strand are:

1. 27 silver round, 14 cut gold
2. 28 silver round, 16 cut gold
3. 28 silver round, 18 cut gold
4. 29 silver round, 20 cut gold
5. 30 silver round, 22 cut gold  (this is the middle strand, so I just used the amounts above in reverse)

There are no doubt some other 'color' or types of beads mixed in throughout the design by accident. They are so small, it was hard to be perfect in my selection - although the more I work with them, the better I become at identifying their slight differences and culling them. Like all things, it's a process.

Getting straight fringe with these unique beads is a challenge. Their thin edges mean that they don't necessarily stack straight on the one beneath or above them. However, it is important not to pull too tight or you're guaranteed to have wonky bent fringe. Patience was important as is the technique to roll the fringe on a flat surface. Once the fringe seemed to lay right, I would stitch into the next ladder stitch for the next fringe, but continue to adjust and smooth the fringe. This give more thread tension to avoid it pulling too loose. 

All of this worked great in theory and the fringe looks straight and even considering the beads inconsistencies. However, once I wore the earrings, the beads stacked more closely leaving a little gap between the brick stitch and the fringe. It's minor and can be fixed by rolling the fringe on a soft surface again. For now, I don't think it's a big deal. It doesn't seem like it's from the thread stretching, since I did pre-stretch it and the beads seem too light to cause stretch.

My initial thoughts on the earrings is great satisfaction. The fringe is incredibly soft and hangs, and even looks, more like chain than beads. The brick stitch area is a bit small for my liking - but I'll make adjustments on the next pair that I make.

One final thought is on the color of the steel beads. I call the silver, but as you can see, they are not really silver when you look at them next to a pair of sterling silver bead earrings. They have more of a gold cast, but I'm not sure what the name for the color would be. Maybe it is steel?

Anyway - share your thoughts. This was some new ground for me and I was very reticent to take apart this piece of thistory, but in the end, it felt much better than keeping it in a drawer hidden away. The truth is that I have a decent collection of tattered bags, so I'll probably do this again.