My final task was to finish this bracelet along the edges with beads in a picot pattern in order to cover up any out of control stitching, etc. This is the final piece:
Now for what I did wrong. Other than the fact that I started this piece three times before I could get my act together enough to usher in the final product, I made a mistake I’ve made before. Rather than take the extra ten minutes to warp a Mirrix with a shedding device, I took the short cut route and at first used the LoreliLoom (which I really just badly wanted to use), then the LaniLoom once I realized my sizing was off on the LoreliLoom and then the LaniLoom again once that one imploded. All along the way a little voice should have been screaming: this is all leading you to use a loom with a shedding device. But like many little voices I didn’t listen.
Now was not using the shedding device with this particular piece a problem? Quite simply, it’s the difference in shape between the Swarovski crystals and the Delica beads that causes the issue. When sewing through one to the other the needle really needs to change angles in order to capture both kinds of beads. In many cases when a Delica followed a crystal, the warp thread between them ended up floating on top of the weft thread. Actually this happened in both directions. Lots of floaters in this piece that had to be manually fixed when I added the edging piece. That was a pain. I almost marched off to the eye doctor to get me a new set of glasses because I could barely see what I was doing.
My conclusion is this: Use the shedding device when you are weaving beads of different shapes always. You can skip the shedding device if you like when using just one bead size and especially for thinner pieces. For me though I might just be better off always using the shedding device because I seem to harbor no talent for being able to sew through the top of the beads without those annoying weft floats all over the place. I know others can do this way better than I can.
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