Hi this Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you how to
Use the Ricks Beading Loom
this is what
the loom looks like
it is a little different from a traditional beading loom
the regular beading loom will leave you with
all of your warp threads
hanging off the ends in which case you would need to
back
loom weaving pieces but this
beading loom only leaves you with two warp threads at the ends
it's a lot less bulky and a lot more possible to used
the loom woven piece
without putting a back on it
the loom does come with a user's guide that has instructions in it
I'm going to show you
how to do it just
in case that's an easier way for you to follow
your loom will come with
four of these
warp pegs. They have a little split in them.
one of them is a spare
you use three
and it will come with three warp rods and one of those is a spare
your warp
rods
in the storage position
sit on these magnetics
the first thing I want to do
is pull off one of the little
plastic ends
slide it through
these
little loop
here and here
on the stocks
the other things that come with
the loom is your warp separator card
this is just a laminated card if your lose it or it
stops
having a nice edge to it you can just use a
playing card or business card cut in half
so to
do loom bead weaving
you need some seed beads
and delica's are going to give you a really nice
even
flat, uniform looking pieces of bead weaving
because they have a much more uniform sizes and shapes
I'm using an 10/0
size delica
this is a little easier to get the hang of with a larger bead
than a smaller bead. It would be a little easier to do
a narrower strip to start with
then I just have a nylon beading thread that I'm going to use
and I have a size ten beading needle and some scissors
one of the things that's different about the rick's beading loom is you need to
determine
the length of your piece
before you start
move the little
wing nuts
in order to adjust the position
of this piece here
and I'm not doing a very large piece because I'm just
doing it to demonstrate for you so I'm gonna move mine down quite a bit
measure
from rod to rod
and include the rid in your measurement
so I only need
a few inches in order to demonstrate
I'm gong to move mine pretty close
and then just tighten up
both of those wing nuts
to make your
stuff nice and sturdy there
then pull out
the warp pegs
take your beading thread
leave it on the spool
give yourself about an inch tail
slide your thread
into the slit in the warp peg
and go around the peg a couple of times
and bring your thread
back through
and then place the peg
into the
second slot
the second little hole there
take your spool of
thread. Leave a little thread
on the spool. You don't want to cut it unless you're spool to fit
over this
go over
the warp threads
past underneath
and pull back around
now anytime you're doing
bead
weaving on a loom, you need
your warp threads
and then when you weave across those warp threads
your warp threads you will need one more thread
than
the number of beads you want in a row
and every pass back and forth
each pass
is going to give you one thread. Make sure that you're counting
back and forth and not just
the full past but each direction
you want to keep the tension on
the thread that your pulling
pretty snug. Don't bend the warp threads out of shape but
keep it tight
so I've got one
two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight
and I'm just gonna do a piece
that's eight beads wide just to demonstrate
I'm going to go ahead and finish with mine
now when
you do your last past you wanna make sure that you
are headed over
the warp rods so
if for example you are going to have
a different number and you are going to end on this side, instead of going
under you
pull this last bead over
because you need to have the tension to pull it down
but mine
is going to end
on this end instead
I'm doing an even-numbered beads
mine will be going over
go ahead and give yourself a
nice sufficient
tail of thread
take another warp peg
measure out where it's going to go into the hole
slide the thread into the slit in the work peg
around
and
back through
go ahead and
push the peg into the hole and if you're on this end push it into the
corresponding hole
and then you're going to tighten
that up just like
you would a guitar string if you're familiar with that
twist
on the peg until you have a nice tension
now if you can
even out
the tension on your threads
it's gonna make
the first couple of rows a little easier to complete
space them out
somewhat close to the size and I want it to be and nicely even
make sure those warp pegs are secure and the next thing we're going to do
is take that warp separator
you're going to go over under
over under
through each thread
and make sure you go in the right order as they're wrapped around. Don't
twisted or crossed
and pull the warp separator card
all the way down to the bottom warp rod there
you're going to take
a new length of thread
and get a length that's about as long as you're comfortable working with
and you need to tie off and a new thread
as you run out and you would do that
just the same way as you would with off loom weaving and we do have a video how to tie
and add new thread in bead weaving
if you're not familiar with that process
thread your needle
take about a six inch tail
you're going to go
into the slit
on that last warp thread
wrap it around a couple times
and back the other way through the slit
and now we're going to go into the first hole
pick up a number of beads
that you've decided
what will be in each row
for your project
bring your needle
from left to right under your work threads
pull the beads down
not all the way
just about
half or two-thirds of the way down the thread
you can put your needle down
the little
magnet here to keep it out-of-the-way
for the very first row you're going to bring a thread up
over the warp separator
and you want your beads
pull it down
to rest right on top of the warp separator
your going to use your finger
to hold the beads in place
and then arrange your warp threads
so that there is
one thread to either side of each bead
we do need to
move them around and make sure that
your threads are all in order and there's not too between a bead
just like that each
bead has a thread to either side including on the outside
don't let them double up
be careful
they move around really pretty easily at the very beginning. The beginning is a way
harder
than the rest
if you can get a hang of it in the beginning
you'll be fine
then we're going to pass our needle back
through from right to left over the warp threads
in the user manual
he does suggest using
the needle eye first, you can go
point first or eye first
and it's a little easier to go above the warp threads and not hit the warp thread
if you use the eye first
be careful because that means that the
end in your hand is sharp
you don't wanna poke yourself with it
take the eye of your needle and angle it upwards towards you a little bit as you go
back through
to make sure that you're going up on top of the warp threads
and then pull
all the way through
now if you
went underneath any of the warp threads accidentally
you'll have a bead fallout
so you need to go back and pull the thread
and start again
so that's the first row
pull that tight
we're going to do one more row before we remove the warp separator
get your
designated number
beads on the needle
pull it down a little bit
bring your needle
from the left to the right under the warp threads
pull it down
and use your finger
to push the beads up through the warp threads
once you get the beads
in their spot
which is much easier after the first row
and you're going to
get your needle
you're going to go back
through the beads from right to left on top of the warp threads
so you can decide if you're more comfortable using
the needle eye first or point first
and then pull that tight
now you're going to pull the warp separator card out
and then just take
your first two rows
push them all the way down against the warp rod
and then pull
to pull up the slack on your warp thread
and push them all the way. You don't want any extra space here
and then you're just going to continue
doing rows
in the same manner
pull the beads down
bring your needle underneath from left to right
use your finger to push
the beads up through the warp threads
one to either side of each bead
bringing your needle back
over the warp threads from right to left
and pull
and you're going to continue doing rows until you fill the entire warp thread
and your ending right as close to this
warp thread as possible
Once you've
done your loom weaving all the way up to the top
we're going to go ahead and
try to fit as many rows as you can all the way up
to the warp
rod
and I have
pushed mine down pretty tight. You don't wanna rumple it
you are going to absorb the
access thread that goes over the warp threads so
if it's
pretty tight
beforehand it's going to be less loose
later is the way I look at it
I'm going to do just my last
row
it can be a little tricky
to do the last row or two just like the first ones can be a little tricky
just because the way that the warp threads go
over and under
the rod there
I actually
find that sometimes it's easiest to do this a few beads at a time
push
that bead up through
even though you have those
threads going around this way. It's a little tricky
this is another thing that's harder to do with a smaller bead
I do suggest practicing with like a 10/0 before you try an 11/0
you can see that
I'm using up all the space, all the way from one warp rod to the next
you want to leave as little extra space there as possible
go back through
and tie off
and you can decide how you're going to attach this, how you're going to
finish it, what you're going to do with it
whether or not you want to
tie off before or if you're going to need that end thread there
I'm just going to tie off to get this thread out of my way
since I'm just showing you how to use the loom
and again you would just tie off
the same way as you do when you do off bead weaving
tie a knot and then weave through
some extra beads
now
we're going to remove the warp threads
and pull the threads off
and then remove the warp rods
slide this out right out of the bead work
if you've done loom
weaving on a traditional bead loom
then you know that now usually you have lots and lots of warp threads hanging
loose all over the place
so
as you can see what we have here is just a little loop at the end instead so what
you're gonna do is
just gently
shift
and spread the beads
with your fingers
you're going to just take up that access
you wanna make sure you don't have any big gaps any where. This is one of the reasons
why if you've pulled it
tighter while it was on the loom you're going
work a little better now
because you've got
a little bit more room for those bead to fill in
and so
this is the beginning of my warp threads so I'm tie that off
and then you only have
to warp threads
to tie off
and weave in
and you can use those threads to connect
findings or a clasp or you can just
weave them in and
have a nice freestanding piece, so it's
much much easier to use your loom piece
of the Rick's loom
without having to back it the way you'd traditionally for a regular loom.
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