Quick Start to Our New Style of Patterns

Over the years my style of pattern writing has changed. When I write a pattern I always write it in a way that I would want to read a pattern. I ensure that what is produced should be an exact copy of my design. This method has always served me well, and I have been praised a lot for the depth and detail in my patterns.

Of course, over the years technology has changed and beaders, faced with more and more choice, have become much more demanding in their expectations. Therefore it has been essential to keep up and embrace new technical advances and methods when I am writing (not that the work required to write up the pattern is easier, it actually is a lot more work)

A couple of years ago I had an ah-ha moment, when I realised that the reason I hated following word charts was the way they were laid out. I am a programmer by trade so I set about trying to create a new style of word chart, one which combined the picture, which I preferred to follow, and a word chart together.

After using it I found this colour word chart to be easier to use and faster to bead with less mistakes and so I started releasing it with all my new patterns.

But if you are new to ThreadABead and see charts like this you may be thinking what on earth is this all about, don't worry it looks more difficult than it is. Here is quick guide:

Starting Beadwork

When we start a piece of beadwork, we are either starting with a loop or by picking up a strand of beads....

Peyote Row

On a normal row of peyote, when we are picking up one bead and going through the next bead of previous row each time, we will lay out the row as below. The top row showing the colour of the bead to pick up the bottom how many times to repeat this.

Adding more than one bead

When creating 3D beadwork we are not always picking up one bead at a time, sometimes it is more than one, and this is how we show this:

Adding a Gap

Sometimes we are not picking up a bead, but moving into the next bead in previous row. See also how we handle this at the start of the row, or when we need to hide the thread.

Starting a row with a Gap

If the row starts with a gap, then at the end of the row we go through this to get to the first bead of row.

No Thread Showing Gap

Occasionally we will need to create a No Thread Showing Gap (Ntsg), where we need a gap but do not wish to show any thread.

Pattern Assumption

When following our patterns when beading the next row we will always treat the beads on the previous row the same, regardless of how they have been picked up, unless otherwise stated.