Dilettante (part 2) - bridesmaid patterns

Beady project number two last weekend was headband number five for my cousin's wedding (check out Bits for bridesmaids).

I promised a pattern for these, so here goes. It's pretty basic bead embroidery, which I am hoping will make my first ever pattern an easy one to write!

First, source a hairband of the appropriate size. The ones I'm making are for little girls so they're small, but if you want to make a band for a teenager or adult you'll need to find bigger ones. You'll need your band to be covered in fabric so that you have something to stitch to: mine were already wrapped in satin ribbon, but if your bands are plain plastic, buy yourself a reel of ribbon and follow these steps:

1. Seal the end of the ribbon by very carefully passing it through a flame - this will prevent fraying.
2. Place a small dot of fabric glue on the sealed end of the ribbon and stick it carefully to one end of the hair band.
3. Wrap the ribbon along the length of the band diagonally (this looks prettier than a straight wrap). Try to make sure that your ribbon layers overlap slightly so the plastic doesn't show through.
4. When you reach the end of the band, trim your ribbon, seal the raw end in a flame and glue the ribbon to the band.
5. You'll now need to neaten the ends. To do this, cut two lengths of ribbon which are each twice the width of the band. Glue one side of each ribbon and wrap like this:
1. Place the hair band on the glued side of the ribbon.
2. Wrap the side edges in so that the meet on the inside of the band (which will not show).
3. Wrap the bottom edge up to cover the side edges.

You might be pleased to know that the wrapping is the complicated bit, and also the bit that you can skip very easily, if you can source the right bands! So, how to do the fun bit? That's easy.

Take your fabric or ribbon-wrapped band and size 11 seed beads in your preferred colour (size 15s also work but will make your life harder!). Prepare a comfortable doubled length of beading cotton (I used Nymo) - doubling will help to ensure that your work is sturdy, and will help it to last longer. Secure the nymo to the inside of the band, then bring your needle to one edge of the band (I'll call this side one).

Pick up enough seed beads to completely cover the band - for my bands, I needed 11 size 11s. I stitched my beads on the diagonal because I think it's pretty, as did the bride and her mother, but you could go for straight horizontal lines if you prefer. Once you've got the number of beads sorted out, take your needle over to the other side of the band (I'll call this side two). Secure the beads by taking a tiny stitch through the ribbon, bringing the needle out of the ribbon, still on side two, about 1mm from the last bead. Pick up another row-worth of beads, take them over to side one, and secure. Keep zig-zagging from side one to side two all the way along the hair band. Try to keep the rows of beads nestled closely together, so that you don't end up with gappy bands.

You'll probably need to add more nymo, unless you're comfortable beading with about two metres of the stuff (I'm not!). I found that the best way to do this was to stop adding rows of beads when I had around 15cm of nymo still on the needle. I then secured my new length of nymo on the inside of the hair band as I had the original one, stitched through the last three rows again and continued adding new rows from there. When I had about ten rows on the new length, I went back to the original needle and stitched through the first three new rows before securing the old nymo and cutting the needle free.

Once your seed beads are on, you can start the crystal embellishment. I used 2mm crystals for this, and doubled nymo again as my thread (I know fireline is better for crystals but I don't like it!). Each embellishment was done as follows: stitch in from side one of the band towards the middle. Come out of the fourth seed bead from the edge of side one. Pick up one seed bead, a crystal and a seed bead. Take your needle three rows up the band and stitch through the fourth bead from the edge of side two. Come out of side two. Which seed bead you come out of and how many rows you skip will depend on how many beads you have in a row and how large your crystals are. If you've stitched your seed beads firmly enough, you''ll be able to weave in and out of the rows without having to go right to the edges. You're aiming for this:

I chose to add my embellishments against the grain of my seed beads because they seem to catch the light better that way, but you could go with the grain if you prefer.

A tip on dealing with ends of nymo: double knot the thread, trim the ends to around 1mm and seal them with a flame. Be careful not to singe anything!