Athena Earrings

Variations of a Pattern

Athena Earrings by Deborah Roberti at aroundthebeadingtable.com 

Deb's design includes:

11/0 Seed Beads

SuperDuo or Twin Beads

4mm fire-polished beads

I could not help but wonder what substituting other beads for the 4mm fire-polished beads would look like.  So I began experimenting.

Miyuki just released new colors of the Long Magatama beads this Fall - there are 49 new colors available on the Red Panda Beads website.  

There are several precious metal plated beads included in the release - I fell in love with the LMA-191F-TB color and wondered what Long Magatama beads would do to Deb's design.  I haven't tried them yet in the bracelet, but I rather like the effect on the earrings.  This design could compliment a bracelet made with the Long Magatamas if you don't already have a pattern for matching earrings, just use the same color(s) of the Long Magatama beads and complimenting SuperDuos.

I used the taptered SuperDuo TSD-21135 Matte Iris Blue beads and matched the 11RR191 bright gold plated Rocaille seed beads to the bright matte gold of the Long Magatamas to brighten the dark iris colors of the SuperDuo beads.

When I first saw the pattern, I immediately thought to replace the fire-polished rounds with pearls.  I chose cream pearls...

and a light colored tapered SuperDuo bead, TSD-P65401 Opaque Luster Picasso.

This color combo would make very nice wedding jewelry.  I used the 11RR193 light gold Miyuki Rocailles to compliment the warm feel of this piece.

This pattern can be used for either the Twin beads, the tapered SuperDuo beads or the larger 2.5x5mm SuperDuo beads.  So I decided to see how the larger SuperDuo beads would work.

I used the VSD-24K-100 24KT Gold Plated SuperDuo beads and paired them with another of the newly released Long Magatama colors, LMA-257-TB TR Dark Topaz.  I used 11RR401F Matte Black Miyuki Rocailles to allow the other beads to really stand out.

The last version uses the tapered SuperDuo TSD-MD6313 Moon Dust Turquoise beads.  I paired 5/0 E Miyuki Seed beads 5E3282 ICL Rococo Aqua Light Bronze...

...and I finished this version off with the Duracoat 11RR4217 Rocaille Sea Foam Seed beads.

Deb's patterns are so versatile, by changing a bead type and/or color and the same design has four completely different looks.

Happy Beading!

Betsy