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Beading Around a Cabochon -- and Then Reworking It

Last Sunday, I taught a program project for beading around a cabochon. Each member interested in participating brought a one-inch round cabochon already glued to whatever she chose for an interfacing. I brought a picture jasper cabochon, admittedly larger than one inch in diameter, that I glued to Lacy's Stiff Stuff with E6000 glue. I used E6000 glue because once it dries, it's clear, and the glue is flexible enough that you can sew through it.

The picture jasper cabochon looked to me like mountains with the blue sky overhead. As I had told the members prior to the program, they should choose beads in different sizes that matched the colors in the cabochon. With that in mind, I chose tan, brown, and blue. The sizes I chose were 8/0, 10/0 triangles, Delicas (which are 12/0 actually, not 11/0), and 15/0.

I worked on my cabochon as I taught the class to the members. Because they had brought in smaller cabochons, several of them finished their cabochons by the end of the session. I had to finish mine at home. I got as far as half of the round of the Delicas of the third row of peyote in that color. At home, I finished that round, and then added one round of 15/0 to tighten up the beading at the crown of the cabochon.

Here's a picture of the cabochon after I glued the interfacing to the brown backing that I wanted to use on the piece:

The reflection on the stone is hiding a little bit of the blue part that looks like the sky, but it's at the top of the cabochon. When I was done with this work, I was happy with the way the colors coordinated with the cabochon, but not too happy that the beadwork was hiding the blue part of the stone.

So what I decided to do is take off four rows of peyote stitch, which will take off the 15/0 beads, and take off three rows of the blue Delicas. I replaced the last row of Delicas removed with a brown Delica, and this tightened up the beadwork. I still wanted to highlight the brown in the stone, so the picot edge that I'm going to sew to hide the edges of the interfacing and the facing will be a brown similar to the 15/0 beads here.

Below is the redesigned cabochon.

Re-designed Cabochon

This reworking resulted in more of the blue showing on the stone, while still keeping a bit of brown on the inside beadwork. Using the same strong brown Delica, I finished the cabochon with a picot edge.

I was very pleased with the new look of the cabochon. Now I am thinking of designing a strand for it, and then perhaps fringe.