Crafty tip: How to thread those big hole beads

Large hole beads

You fall in love with a beautiful bead, you buy it and now you want to make a piece of jewellery. But how do you get the darned thing to sit nicely on a hatpin?

There are special findings for big hole beads on the market, made from silver och copper, but they are quite expensive. Here are some less costly tips.

The first problem, of course, it to prevent the hatpin of just going through the bead. You can use beadcaps, but it can be hard to find any who fits on your bead.

A selection of findings

I usually use either so called daisies (the flat flower shaped beads to the bottom middle and right) or similar OR a round bead, 3 or 4 mm depending on the size of the hole. The bead can be metall, glass or chrystal (but I will not bore you with my stash of round glass beads and fireppolished in every possible colour!). If you choose a good size the top of the bead will fit snuggly inte to your lampwork bead wich steadies it on the hat pin.

Wobbel

The next problem is tht once stuck on the hat pin, the big hole bead will wobble around. The hole in the bead is about 2 mm and a hatpin in less than 1 mm. I solve this buy using seedbeads size 11/o. I thread them on the hat pin and than slips the lampwork bead over them. And suddenly there's no wobbeling!

Seed beads on a hat pin

No wobbeling no more!

If you wish you can find seedbeads matching this precise bead but I seldom care about that since the seedbeads doesnit show anyway. If I have a black core bead I use black seeds, otherwise I use clear.

See the seed?

A little warning, though. Avoid beads that are in any way lined or has a special finish on the surface. The lined beads can be to narrow for your hat pin and the finish beads to wide for your large hole bead.

Written by Susanne Folin, Babs Beads & Design