Welcome to the 3-D beaded rounded heart pattern instructions! If you have any difficulty following this tutorial, please post a comment at the bottom of the page on which you are stuck, and I'll do my best to help!
Before you begin ...
Materials: 1.5 meters of fishing line, 76 of size 15 (small) seed beads, 37 of size 6 (large) E-seed beads
Time required: 2 to 3 hours, up to 5 hours if inexperienced
Techniques: Beadweaving, right angle weave
Difficulty: Challenging (should be able to do Hello Kitty)
Step 1 : String 6 pearly small seed beads in sequence onto the fishing line. Then, as the picture on the left shows, "cross" the last bead you added (or the first) with the fishing line. The red dot depicts the bead that is to be crossed by the two ends of the fishing line, and the red and black arrows depict the two ends of the fishing line. I have been very consistent throughout the entire tutorial with the arrow directions, and that is to help you figure out what to do with which end, because it matters unless the pattern is symmetrical!
Step 2 : Now pull the two ends of the fishing line tightly through that small seed bead labelled with the red dot, and the picture in step 2 shows how it should look: a tight loop of 6 small seed beads. Now keep in mind as always that at this point, you should be making sure that the two ends of your fishing line are the same length. You can only bead with that fishing line piece until you reach the end of the shorter side. So, you should always make the two ends of fishing line equal in length after crossing the first bead in the pattern, and you do this by making sure your crossed bead is in the center of your 1.5-meter piece of fishing line. Now, onto the end of the fishing line depicted by the red arrow, add the 5 beads shown (one large blue seed bead, one small white seed bead, one large blue, one small white, and finally one large blue bead that is depicted by a yellow dot).
Step 3 : Now the reason I labelled the last large seed bead to be added with a yellow dot is because it's the bead that you will be crossing in this step. So just take the end of the fishing line depicted by the black arrow and string it through that bead, as shown in the picture. Pull it tight.
Step 4 : There is something a little bit subtle going on in this step. You take the end of the fishing line depicted by a red arrow and you string it through the pearly white small seed bead that is labelled with a pink dot. This bead is already in your pattern, so don't add a new bead! To the other end of the fishing line (depicted by a black arrow), add the four new beads shown, the last one added being the large blue seed bead labelled with a green dot.
Step 5 : The large blue seed bead labelled with a green dot is being crossed in this picture by both ends of the fishing line. So all you have to do is take the end of the fishing line depicted by a red arrow and string it through that blue seed bead. Pull tight and your heart pattern should look like the picture! I know it doesn't look like a heart yet, but stay tuned. Actually it probably won't start looking anything like a heart until page 15 or so. LOL!
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| Beader Comments: | |||
| Allegra on September 29, 2008: | |||
| Hi Rareflower, I think you should be okay. Your heart will just end up a bit bigger overall. The heart comes out to being about 1 inch in length. Yours might be 1.5 inches. No biggie! | |||
| rareflower on September 29, 2008: | |||
| Hi allegra I just discovered your wonderful website! i would really love to make this heart but I only have size6 beads (4mm) and size11 (2.2mm).. although your instruction state to use size 15 and 6.. do you think it'll come out if I use 6 and 11? TY! | |||
| Allegra on June 13, 2008: | |||
| I found a guide to seed bead sizes on the internet (boy was it hard to find though, you would think there would be better tutorial sites out there!), and it said that the ranges of seed bead size are size 6 (largest) to size 15 (smallest), and the size 6 seed beads are also referred to as E-beads. The size 6 seed beads fit 6 beads per inch, and the size 15 fit 15 beads per inch, hence the naming system. The size 6 seed beads measure about 4mm, the size 8 seed beads measure 3mm, the size 11 seed beads measure 2.2mm and the size 15 seed beads measure 1.5 mm. So judging from that, I used size 6 and size 15 seed beads to make this pattern. I also read that people use the nomenclature of "6/0", "11/0", etc to refer to the sizes. I don't know what the "/0" is for. LOL! | |||
| Tess on June 6, 2008: | |||
| Hmm....from the pictures. I'm guessing you might have used size 10 or 11 for the smaller seed beads and size 6 for the larger seed beads. | |||
| Allegra on June 5, 2008: | |||
| How do you like the "before you begin ..." section? I thought it would be a good idea to actually display the final object at the front of the tutorial so people know what they are aiming for! And it was the perfect opportunity to list off the materials, which is indeed quite lacking in my tutorials. I usually just start with the first step and you don't know what you are getting yourself into! LOL!! Does anyone know what specific seed bead sizes are used in this pattern? I'm not very familiar with bead size terminology! | |||
| Allegra on June 4, 2008: | |||
| Ta da! Now this tutorial has 19 pages of instructions! | |||
| Allegra on June 4, 2008: | |||
| Okay Laura, I posted your heart on page 9 at the end of the tutorial! You like? I photoshopped the picture a bit too to make it brighter and sharper. I hope you don't mind! I'm so grateful for your and Tess's continuous support. It really helps and motivates me! | |||
| Tess on June 4, 2008: | |||
| What?!! What do you mean? Can you somehow tell how many times I go here or is it just my postings? LOL!!! I've been occupying myself with books that I've purchased and borrowed from the library. Fiance gets ticked off with me lately. I'll I've been doing for the past week or so lately is reading just about all day and night. Then I end up falling asleep in the livingroom. I tried going to bed with him last night, but that didn't work. About a half hour or so of sleep I woke myself up and got up and read somewhere. Again ended up falling asleep in the livingroom. He's even asked me why I haven't really be chatting with you lately. Sorry about that didn't. Hope you don't think I'm ignoring you or anything. Just knew you had a lot of projects and things to do so I didn't want to bother you. LOL!!! | |||
| Allegra on June 4, 2008: | |||
| Hehe, I can't keep up with you. You check more often than me! I guess you really want to finish that heart you started LOL! Well, I can tell you that I'm now very happy with this layout, so I'm going to start posting the new pictures tomorrow morning and every chance I get throughout the day until it's done! | |||
| Tess on June 4, 2008: | |||
| LOL!!! It looks really nice. Great job! | |||
| Allegra on June 4, 2008: | |||
| Ta da! Your wish is my command! | |||
| Tess on June 3, 2008: | |||
| Hey, this looks really good. The step labelling for each picture and paragraphs would really help with the new layout while getting rid of the extra spaces. Highlighting each step label would probably help a bit, but I'll leave that up to you to decide. But the bold lettering for each new step looks good too. Nice job by the way. | |||
| Allegra on June 3, 2008: | |||
| Okay, this page has been completely made over the way I envision this layout going. Does it look better than before? Notice the captions and the bigger title font and the step labelling, and the less wasted space. I'm not sure if I should put green highlighting over the paragraph headings as well (ie "Step 1.") I'll play around with that I guess. LOL! I keep having to learn this as I go using internet tutorials. Sorry this is distracting me from posting the pictures already!!! But I figure it's an investment towards making this site better forever, 'cause I'll make all future new tutorials in this format rather than the old one. I promise the pictures are coming very soon!! They are done, believe me! | |||
| Tess on June 2, 2008: | |||
| I thought it looked a little different. I like it. It looks good. | |||
| Allegra on June 2, 2008: | |||
| LOL!!!! I also bow to Laura's intelligence! I have trouble figuring it out even after having made several of them in my lifetime. LOL! Anyways, I've started changing the layout around to make the tutorial look better and more manageable. Does it look better? I've done pages 1 and 2, so compare those to pages 3 and up. I think it looks a lot better with less wasted space and it wraps much nicer for smaller screens. I'm going to do this for all tutorial pages. Once I do that, I'll add in the new pictures in the right places. Not sure what I'm going to do with the existing text. I might just replace the whole thing. Anyways, thanks for your patience, this tutorial should be done by tonight hopefully! | |||
| Tess on June 2, 2008: | |||
| Holy crap!!! Laura your heart is adorable. I got stuck on page 3 then couldn't figure out the rest. I studied the photos over and over and still had issues. I bow to your intelligence on figuring out. You go girl!!! And Allegra, you are definitely not wasting your time on redoing this tutorial. It definitely will help out the others who try this out. I'm just soooo mind boggled on how Laura figured it out. Geez.... | |||
| Allegra on June 2, 2008: | |||
| Okay guys, this is it. I just finished adding arrows to all my new heart tutorial pictures! So tomorrow I am posting them all in one big swoop! Sorry again that it took so long to do this! I am always too optimistic and then life gets in the way!! | |||
| Laura on May 26, 2008: | |||
| Okay, I'll have to examine the heart again and try and remember the sizes of the beads! The larger beads were ones I've had for ages and were in a little plastic bag - I'll try and measure them LOL. | |||
| Allegra on May 24, 2008: | |||
| So I am really really close to finishing this heart tutorial! I've already cropped 70 pictures!! I'm very close to the end and I hope to have this tutorial posted (the fixed version) by monday or tuesday. Laura, I'm going to need a description of your heart as well to post with your picture (like Tess's description on the last page of the elastic caterpillar bracelet). You can email it to me here: allegra@friendshipbeading.net. | |||
| Laura on May 23, 2008: | |||
| Yes, please, that's really kind of you. I don't know about being 'unusually gifted', LOL, but thanks :-) I think a new tutorial will help although I don't know how you have the patience! There are so many steps for this heart it is easy to get confused. | |||
| Allegra on May 22, 2008: | |||
| Laura, I can post that picture of your heart on this tutorial if you want to show people your version! I did that for Tess's version of the elastic caterpillar bracelet. You can see hers on the last page of that tutorial! Would you like me to post yours? (I can get the pic from your link). | |||
| Allegra on May 22, 2008: | |||
| Wow, your heart is so pretty Laura!!! I can't believe you just figured it out! LOL, and here I am cropping the pictures from the "new and improved" version of this tutorial! Oh well, I guess you're unusually gifted, so maybe I'm not wasting my time. LOL!! | |||
| Laura on May 22, 2008: | |||
| Sorry, that link didn't work so just copy and paste it into your address bar. | |||
| Laura on May 22, 2008: | |||
| Just had a go at this heart - very complex!! I'm afraid I got a bit stuck on the actual tutorial (page 2 - like a few others did) and I ended up just kinda making it up myself from the photos. I used 2 different sizes of red beads for mine. Here's a link to a photo I took if you want to see it - http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b75/astral_dolphins/heart.jpg | |||
| Tess on April 18, 2008: | |||
| Thanks. After writing the my last comment. I studied the pictures a bit more and figured it out. It took me awhile to see that the X's were the existing beads that are in common with the next set. At first I was just using different sized seed beads and got confused. Then I decided to try seed beads with my Swarovski 4mm faceted ones (like you did in one of your pictures) that I've bought awhile ago cause they were pink and pretty. LOL!!! After I finished the whole circle of 6 in the beginning. I was really excited that I got it and it looked like a snowflake which I think I might make earrings out of. Thanks for the idea. LOL!! Good luck on your exams. I have exams coming up too...ewww!!! Thanks again for the help. | |||
| Allegra on April 18, 2008: | |||
| No you're not supposed to make two. My friend and I were both making them together so that's why there's two. It never occurred to me that that might be confusing LOL! Sorry!!! I know this pattern is confusing at the beginning because it was the very first pattern that I tried making (ever) and I took way too few pictures. I'm planning to make another heart and revamp the beginning of this tutorial (first two pages or so) to make them much more understandable. Hopefully I can get that done soon (in two weeks my exams are done). Anyways, the basis of this pattern is just to make inner circles and outer circles. If you managed to finish page 1, I think you get the idea already of how to do it. All the white small seed beads form circles with each other, and then the bigger blue beads stem from them and join those circles of white beads together. What I meant to show with the pink X's on page 2 was to show you the beads that are in common from one picture to the next. Basically, just make another circle of 5 white beads stemming from one of the 6 pairs of white beads that are all around the model as shown at the bottom of page 1 (so only need to add 3 white beads to make a circle of 5 white beads). Then go around that circle with the blue and white beads again like the first time. I hope this helps. Again, I plan to fix this tutorial up to make it much clearer once my exams are over. Thanks for trying the pattern, I appreciate it! | |||
| Tess on April 18, 2008: | |||
| Alright!! I'm totally confused with this pattern. I've finished the steps on page 1. Going on to page 2 I got lost. Am I supposed to make more than one of those circle things like the last picture you have on page 1? | |||
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