Brooches are a huge trend this year and I absolutely love them. I’ve been wanting to make another brooch for some time and it’s good to finally do it. If you remember the last brooch I made, I had a bit of a disaster. You can see what happened here.

The brooch I’m making today may look stunning but it’s actually really simple to make. It’s a good project to do while you’re watching television as it takes a while but doesn’t need your full attention.

Materials

Tools

Beadalon Collapsible Eye Needles Fine - 0.30 mm
Scissors
E6000 or other strong glue

Instructions

Watch the video or follow the instructions below.

Anchor Your Thread

Thread your needle with a long piece of Fireline. Double it and tie both ends together. To anchor the thread, put your needle through one of the second row from the outside holes in the perforated disc from the back coming to the front, leaving about a 8cm (3”) tail. Holding the tail so it doesn’t disappear through the hole, put your needle into the next hole over from the front to the back. Thread the needle through your tail and pull everything up tight. You will use this technique every time you need to renew your thread.

Ending Off

Throughout the project you will need to end off the thread and start a new piece. To end off your thread, loop your needle through a piece of the thread on the back. While you still have a loop (before you pull it tight) thread your needle through the loop and pull tight. Repeat. Trim off the excess.

Restart in the same manner as above by anchoring through a hole or another piece of thread.

Outer Row

Once your thread is anchored, bring your thread up to the top through one of the holes in the second row.

Thread on one of the orange veined beads and one of the orange seed beads. Thread the needle back down through the veined beads but not the seed bead. This will trap the seed bead in the loop of the Fireline and stop the thread going back through the bead.

Put your needle back through the same hole in the disc that you came up from and pull everything nice and tight. You will probably find that it’s easier to pull up if you put the veined bead close to the disc before you pull it up.

Thread the needle through the next hole in the disc from bottom to top and repeat.

Repeat this until you have added a bead to each of the holes on the second row.

Don’t worry about being too neat. The thread will all be covered by the back.

Inner Rows

Using the same technique, add the red faceted round beads and red seed beads to the third row from the outside. Work all the way around.

Keep working around filling in as many holes as you can until there are no more gaps. Try to work consistently around but it will get harder as the space is filled. Your end piece should look like this.