Thread: Making Looped Fringe, little bit of help please!

Hi all,

I've decided to have a go at making my own looped fringe for a bedlah I am desperately trying to get finished.

What I'd like to know, from people who have had a go before, is things like do you start in the middle from the smallest loop and work outwards, or the biggest and work inwards.

#2 If you want them to overlap, do you sew them overlapped at the cord, or make all the loops independently, and overlap them when you stitch them to the belt base?

(I vaguely remember a similar thread, which I couldn't seem to find so if someone wants to point me there if all this has been answered before, I'd be grateful).

Any other hints, tips, advice or warnings also welcome, and I'll post pics when I get started!

If you start with the longest loop and work inward you can predetermine the length much better than when starting from the inside and working out.

Overlapping - UUuuuummm. I suppose if they are seperate you have the option of moving them around to fit onto your base better.

Originally Posted by whiteroses

do you start in the middle from the smallest loop and work outwards, or the biggest and work inwards.

Largest inward. I measured out the length I wanted it on the base then started at one end and added beads until it looked right then measured the strand so I could make each set identical with the first.

Originally Posted by whiteroses

#2 If you want them to overlap, do you sew them overlapped at the cord, or make all the loops independently, and overlap them when you stitch them to the belt base?

I didn't overlap so that would be up to you. I believe normally it is all done on the one base or ribboncord though.

Originally Posted by whiteroses

Any other hints, tips, advice or warnings also welcome, and I'll post pics when I get started!

Tie off each strand as you go. That way if one breaks you don't loose all of them.

Thanks for the prompt replies .

I see there is agreement on big loop inward, excellent.

I'm going to make a start on this tonight, so we'll see how it goes!

I got a bead spinner for doing this, it'll probably take me all night just to get the hang of using it, but hopefully i'll get a progress pic up tomorrow.

I'm thinking to try doing it all off the one cord just to reduce the bulk of overlapping them, but if that ends up getting complicated I'll switch.

Tying off each strand- noted. I'd have done this anyway to make it more secure, but it's always good to get a reminder

Ive been thinking about this and Im probably stating the obvious but youll also need to match your cord to the belt and measure out the spaces that you want the loops to fit.

Originally Posted by alibellySA

Ive been thinking about this and Im probably stating the obvious but youll also need to match your cord to the belt and measure out the spaces that you want the loops to fit.

Hi,
Yeah I absolutely had to do this, the belt has a shaped edge. Basically I took the pattern I made the belt with and pinned the cord to it, and I'm working off it from that, so that should keep everything where I want it to be

Progress pics, fringe tacked to belt
Photo0010.jpg

It's been slow going, but the bead spinner has made life a lot easier!

I'm going to add overlapping loops, before continuing on to the front of the belt and a little on the bra.

Wow, that looks gorgeous! Can't wait to see the finished result!

Thats looking fantastic! Well done - I send a thank you out to whoever invented the bead spinner everytime I use mine!

I had never heard of a bead spinner before, so I looked it up and found this:
Make Your Own Bead Spinner - Kimberly Chapman's Beading

No idea if it's helpful at all, but I thought I would share.

Doing a little math can help. Always work widest loop to smallest loop. Put a pin to mark where each looped section starts and stops. Then do the math. Say the longest loop takes 100 beads. The next smallest loop should be five beads less for 95 beads and the next 5 beads less for 90 beads etc. I am just throwing out numbers here but it's important to decrease mathematically so they will hang evenly. Don't just do it by eye.

Originally Posted by eshtabellydance

Doing a little math can help. Always work widest loop to smallest loop. Put a pin to mark where each looped section starts and stops. Then do the math. Say the longest loop takes 100 beads. The next smallest loop should be five beads less for 95 beads and the next 5 beads less for 90 beads etc. I am just throwing out numbers here but it's important to decrease mathematically so they will hang evenly. Don't just do it by eye.

That idea works for straight lines, but curves are more complex than that. I'm not mathematician enough to know what the formula should be. But I do know that if you decrease by the same amount for each loop, it's not going to work.

If someone *is* mathematically minded enough to let us know how the decrease should go, I'm sure a lot of people here would be very grateful!

ETA- It'll be something to do with Pi, won't it?

Originally Posted by beafarhana

But I do know that if you decrease by the same amount for each loop, it's not going to work.

That is why I just use a measurement of length instead of trying to count the beads.

Originally Posted by beafarhana

If someone *is* mathematically minded enough to let us know how the decrease should go, I'm sure a lot of people here would be very grateful!

ETA- It'll be something to do with Pi, won't it?

LOL, worse than that! It would be tolerable to come up with a formula for nested half circles, but the "Great Loop" style fringe is nested half ovals, so we'd be looking at these sorts of calculations, divided by two: Perimeter of Ellipse. How do they phrase it in the math books, "This exercise shall be left to the reader"?

Um, no. I'd say this is a case for the "play around until you find what you like and write it down for next time" method, unless you're partial to the "borrow someone else's Great Loop and count the beads on those swags" strategy.

Originally Posted by beafarhana

That idea works for straight lines, but curves are more complex than that. I'm not mathematician enough to know what the formula should be. But I do know that if you decrease by the same amount for each loop, it's not going to work.

If someone *is* mathematically minded enough to let us know how the decrease should go, I'm sure a lot of people here would be very grateful!

ETA- It'll be something to do with Pi, won't it?

I've made maybe 100 costumes with looped fringe and this always works. It's just my technique I am sharing with you.
Since each inner loop is slightly smaller than the first big outer loop it can be very hard to get them to hang evenly within each other. Which seems to be the problem everyone has. Decreasing each inner loop by the same amount will make them hang evenly. So just say your biggest loop is 100 beads. The next inner loop would be say 90 beads. 10 less than the biggest outer loop. Then the next inner loop would be 80 beads. 20 less than the biggest out loop and so on and so on until you reach the desired shortest inside loop and stop. This will only work if all your beads are the same size. Because the bead number amount you choose to decrease by is the same length each time you are shortening each inner loop by the same length which will make them hang evenly. This is a really fast and easy way to do it.

Hehe, I like the idea of the maths equation. I'm starting teacher training in science this year, if I were doing maths I would definitely set this as as a problem, "if a bellydancer wants to make this fringe, work out the equation that allows her to do this" then they could submit beaded proof that it works! (extra marks given if I got to keep the fringe!)

I pretty much just did it by eye this time. I've been adding in bigger beads to give it more texture, so for this one bead counting probably wouldn't work so well, but I'll bear it mind for next time and see if I get more even results.

It's not perfectly even TBH even though I did measure, I think because there are a lot of curves here- on the base & in the fringe. I am pretty pleased with it so far though.

Progress is halted because I lost the bead spinners special needle, waiting for new ones to arrive, then I'll push on with it.

Originally Posted by whiteroses

Progress is halted because I lost the bead spinners special needle, waiting for new ones to arrive, then I'll push on with it.

I know a dancer who makes her own needles by twisting a loop of fine-gauge wire.

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

I know a dancer who makes her own needles by twisting a loop of fine-gauge wire.

I suspect this is quite easy to do, they don't seem too complicated, and no doubt cheaper than buying them...I'll have to investigate further. It honestly hadn't occurred to me to make my own. Ta.

I have to agree with Eshta- the one looped fringe I just eyeballed was a pain in the rear- it would look fine lying flat but it took me forever to fix it so it really looked even. Instead of counting, I use measuring marks. Kind of whacky, but this is what I did- I used one of those pens meant for drawing musical scores (yeah, I know not everyone has these lying around, but you could improvise & use one of the pencils meant for marking seam allowance?) and drew a half loop. then I used a thread to measure each half loop, marked it on a paper, so I ended up with something like this:
-----------------------
----------------------------
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That way I'm not afraid of loosing count of beads, but I still get a measured outcome. I suppose if you have a set with loops that lie nicely for you, you could just measure how long the loops are on the existing set. & I still work from the outside in.

Thats what I do Lara! The beads we have here in SA are not always evenly sized so counting doesnt quite work.

Yep. the counting thing only works if the beads are all the same size. Another technique - just throwing out numbers here - is to measure 1" of seed beads on your string and then adding an accent bead that's slightly larger. Then another 1" of beads and an accent bead etc. then on the next smaller loop minus one of the 1" sections so you have one less accent beads. Like this:

Hi ,

Here's another update pic, with the second row of loops added it is looking much better! The back is now done, and I'm looking at the daunting task of doing it all over again for the front!! I have noticed that I get quicker with each set of loops, so hopefully it wont take as long.


And lined




http://i740.photobucket.com/albums/x.../Photo0014.jpg