June's Beading Prompt

Hellooooooo out there!  How has your month been?  I hope it's been a good one.  :)  Here I am back to frustrate... er INSPIRE you again!  Last month's fringe prompt brought out some really beautiful pieces in the group.  I hope some of you out there in blog land tried your hands at it, too.

This month may bring some consternation to a few people, but it's one of my absolute favorites and so I *had* to go there... Cubic Right Angle Weave.  This stitch is so incredibly versatile, and expands your knowledge base so much, that I had to have it in here somewhere this year.  In some cases it can be straight and rigid and can make for lovely crisp lines in your work, but in other applications it can be flowing and drapey and provide sensuous curves.  It can encircle and wrap, or it can stand on it's own.  It can be made with such a soft hand that it becomes a fabric, or it can be made with tight tension to make a sturdy platform.  Peyote stitch is the only other stitch I can think of that has so many possibilities inherent in it.

There are several thread paths that can be used to stitch CRAW - the one that I was taught straight out of the gate which uses the clockwise/counter clockwise right angle weave path, and the one I learned from Heather Collin, which uses a more circular (but linear) path.  My own personal thread path is a combination of the two; I do the first three parts of the unit (cube) Heather's way and then the last two parts traditionally.  (Yes, I know, I'm weird - but it's totally ingrained now, and I do it automatically, lol. ) I think that however you get there, it's CRAW, and it's wonderful!

If you haven't tackled this yet, I know it's intimidating.  But there are FABULOUS tutorials out there that will help you learn it, and I guarantee that you won't regret learning it.  It expands your beady vocabulary and opens whole new vistas.  So the first two links I'm sharing are beginning tutorials that will get you started on your way.  The first is a link to Marcia's fantastic video by Interweave, which happens to be on sale for a great price right now - Cubic Right Angle Weave With Marcia DeCoster: Fundamentals, can be found HERE and is a wonderful basis to grow from.  Marcia's method is the traditional method.  Many new to CRAW beaders started their journey just recently with the LOVE letters on Marcia's BeadLove Blog, as well.  If you'd like to try your hand and haven't seen those posts yet, you can find them HERE, just keep scrolling through the posts to get to the first four posted.

Heather Collin's CRAW tutorials can be found on her YouTube channel HERE, and not only does she show you the basic rope with her thread path, but also how to create a frame and how to add rows to an existing rope.  And she has positively TONS of glorious CRAW tutorials in her Etsy shop HERE, such as this yummmmmmmmmy Sugar Cube tutorial!

If you're already an old hand at CRAW, you still may not have found some of these gorgeous tutorials yet, and so I wanted to share them (and if you search Etsy for cubic right angle weave beading tutorial you will find about a million more!):

Sian Nolan has this lovely Picket Fence Bracelet tutorial that I love;  you can find it HERE.

This tutorial by Helena Lang-Tim, called Il Braccialetto della Marchesa just blows my mind...  so much beauty.  You can find it HERE.

A variation on standard CRAW, Gwen Fisher has written this outstanding and unique tutorial on Twisted CRAW - so pretty!!  You can find it HERE.

Another variation of CRAW, Valorie Clifton has THIS terrific Tribulations bracelet:

And Kassie Shaw has her awesome Toblerone bracelet in her Etsy shop HERE:

And last but hopefully not least, I have two tutorials myself, one for sale in my shop and the other a freebie which you can find either on my blog or on my website.  Juliet is a necklace I designed years ago using CRAW and it's still one of my favorites. You can find the tutorial HERE.

And I did a post about making Color Play Ropes here on the blog - these necklaces use bead soup or any leftover beads you may have hanging around in a really textural rope that's fun to stitch up.  It shows how to add in single beads on your strand of CRAW, and how to embellish a bit.  You can find that post HERE.

And if you have Jane Lock's wonderful book The Art of Beadwork, I have a bracelet project in there in CRAW, too.  I hope you have found some inspiration here, or, if you haven't tried it before, you're feeling brave and want to give it a go!  Go CRAW happily!  I hope to see your pieces in the FB group, or if you have a blog and do a post with a piece from the prompt, leave me a comment with a link!