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Hi! This is Megan with Beadaholique.com and I'm going to show you
how to anchor different types of chain to your bead
embroidery foundation
when you want to add a different kind of dimension to your bead embroidery
so I have to four different types of chain here. I have a regular cable chain
a ball chain
a box chain and rhinestone cup chain
it is a little different the way you would want to secure them down so I thought I
would show you
a few different types. So I have
a piece of Lacy's stiff stuff
that I'm going to use as my bead embroidery foundation
and then I have
a beading needle with some nylon beading thread
so I'm gonna go ahead and start with
the regular cable chain
and I'm just gonna
do a little length skip over and do the next one
just to show you the different ways and
I'm going to
come up from the back
like always
with a knot
go up this way
so you want to use
a thread
color that's gonna match your chain pretty well
and unless you want to see
your foundation behind your chain
some of them is gonna hide more so than others. A regular cable chain
is going to show through
we do have a video on dying Lacy's Stiff Stuff
so you could dye that to match a little bit better and
it would show less
or you can
go ahead and just go right onto an ultra suede foundation or something like that
I took a stitch up
and grab the end of the chain
stitch up
go right around the end and right back down
then you can see this chain, you kind of have it at an angle, a diagonal where you
have
this side touching the foundation then this side, then this side
so all you want to do
is get
your needle up
right next to
where the side of that link touches the foundation
and just take a stitch right over the side of the link and back up
and then you're going to come up
in the next link again
just inside where that link touches the foundation
and then take the stitch
down right outside
so each time you come up
with a stitch you just want to capture
that part and tack it down
so then you go into the next one
come up
just inside that link
and stitch it down
and don't forget to condition your thread
otherwise it will be tangly like mine
you can make sure that your
chain doesn't get
twisted up
too
you can keep it going every other one
so that it will lay nice and uniformly
that's mostly a concern with the cable chain
do a couple more so you can see the way that it lays
okay so you can see it's
nice and uniformly
and it doesn't
misshape it all and holds it down
nice and firm
so that's how you do a normal cable chain
skip over a bit
ball chain is actually
pretty simple
to anchor
you just want to
come up through the back of your foundation
catch the chain right between
two of the balls
and go right back down
and then you're gonna come up right next to the joint between the next two
go right down on the other side
again
to one side
of the little connector space
right back down on the other side
and you keep moving along
I would go ahead and do a stitch between every
section there
just to keep it
connected well
and that's gonna be really secure
cup chain
you'll secure
pretty much exactly the same way as the ball chain
so I'm going to
skip a little
so come up from the back of your foundation
lay down the cup chain
and again you're gonna take a little stitch
right
on the connecting bar between two rhinestones
and cup chain
and ball chain both collapse
and expand
so make sure that you don't
squish it up when you're stitching it down. Makes sure it
lays at its full length
go back
to the next little connector bar between the rhinestones
come up on one side
go right back down on the other
make sure you don't get your thread caught in the prongs that hold the rhinestones
together
I would put a stitch in between
every pair of rhinestones
if you need to you can
take down
your chain
to hold the chain in place
or you can follow the outside shape
of a cabochon
or you can
draw a line on your foundation and then follow the chain
to keep track of
where you need it to be coming
you can see
just like the ball chain, the cup chain is going to be really secure
it's not gonna move around
the last thing I'm gonna show you is box chain
skip over
with the box chain you wanna make sure that your needle is small enough to go
through
the openings
instead of tacking it down
across the side you're going to
tack it down
inside the little box along the bottom
this one is
really clean looking, so you come up from
the bottom of your foundation
go through the end box
and then you're going to
hold it down flat
and go down right next to
where your thread comes out
and then you can
go to the next
sideways box
skip over, you can go to the next link
where the openings are to the side
come up next to the side of the chain
go through that box
and then go down
through your foundation right next to there
go to the next
box that's open on the sides
you want to get your needle up against it
so that your stitches don't show
through the box
and you can continue like that
to leave it
just that way. I do also wanna show you one other way to do this
where you can put beads on top of the box chain
it adds an extra extra bit of dimension
you could probably figure out how to do this with some of the other chains but it's
really easy with the box chains so I'm going to show you
how to do that
if you wanted to do this with cable chain you need to make sure that the bead is
bigger than the hole
that's the basic rule since the box chain has really tiny little holes
it'll work fine
so what I'm going to do is come up through
through one of the holes
in the box chain
this time you're using one of the boxes that
has the opening facing up
then you're going to take
a bead and a seed bead is big enough, you just need it to be bigger than that hole
go down
right back down the same whole
so that bead is going to sit
right on top
then you go to the next hole
go up
grab a bead
go right back down the same hole
go to the next link
and up
grab a bead and right back down that same hole
that's another way to add
more dimension to your bead embroidery
so that
should give you a basic idea on how to attach
any different kind of chain that you have
it could add a really interesting element to bead embroidery.