Tila, Tila, Twin!

Now that I have a brand new work space with brand new beads, I wanted to experiment with some fresh designs. Of course, I cannot abandon my beloved Tila beads but I wanted to play with the *NEW* Czech Twin Beads. In my Tila obsessed mind, I thought that they would be a perfect fit for one another.

Coming up with a design was not quite as easy as I thought. While I love the shape and colors of the Twin Beads, they are not as uniform as Miyuki beads, which I primarily use. I knew I wanted to use Tilas in combination with Twin Beads but I wasn't quite sure how to make them fit together without awkward spaces. Miyuki seed beads seemed to be my best option. At first, I attempted size 8/0, but they were too large. Next, I tried size 11/0 and they worked perfectly!

Once I squared away the sizes, I had to come up with a color scheme (my favorite part!). For this bracelet, I used a combination that I have never tried before - mustard Tilas, AB bronze Twin Beads, and vermilion galvanized Miyuki seed beads. I must digress - the seed beads are such a wonderful color! I can envision using them in so many future designs.

At first I was unsure about the color combination because it was out of my comfort zone, however, a friend assured me it looked Aztec. That made me happy.


I'm a huge fan of the ladder stitch for two reasons:

1) it's easy
2) it is nice and symmetrical (I value symmetry)

So, this bracelet was created using the ladder stitch. I treated the Tilas as an individual unit and stacked a unit of Twin Beads/seed beads above it. I repeated stacking the units until I reached my desired length. And, of course, I finished the piece off with a hand-stiched Tila toggle. Easy as pie!