AUTHOR: Anonymous TITLE: Party Bracelet Tutorial #3 - The Fringe DATE: 10:05:00 AM ----- BODY:

Once you have secured the nylon beading thread, slip a random sampling of beads onto the needle and push along the thread until they are snug up against the base beads. (As I mentioned before, I utilize my bead spinner by just doing a quick twist and having a random selection of beads threaded onto the needle. If you don't have a spinner, just randomly slip the beads from the mix onto your needle. You may want to make patterns with each fringe, but in the overall scheme, I don't think it makes a difference.)

Vary the fringe lengths with the longest at 1" to 1.25". In the bracelets I make, I do three passes (of fringe) up and down the length of the bracelet. You may do the first past with the longest length, the second pass with medium length fringes and the third with short length fringes; or just randomly adjust the lengths as you go along.

Once the beads are snug up against the base beads, pass the needle back up inside the length of beads (except for the last bead of the fringe; if you thread up through that bead again, you're just unthreading the fringe - the last bead is used as a stopper) and then through the next base bead and out.

String on your next set of beads to the desired length. Add a specialty bead or charm as you go along. I added my charms every inch or so or every 5th fringe. Remember on the specialty beads, such as crystals, add a small seed bead to use as the stopper on the fringe and then thread up through the crystal and up the length of the fringe into the next base bead.

Here is a artist's rendering that I had my husband draw up that shows the basic roadmap for beading a fringe.

Here I am about halfway done with the first pass of beaded fringe. It took me about 1.5 hours to get this far - you may be faster. I will end up doing three passes; this will make a nice, full bracelet.

Any questions?

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