an open source architectural beadwork project from Kate McKinnon and a worldwide team of innovators
Have you tried our Cone Stitch yet? It was developed by Dustin Wedekind, and explored in depth in Volume I by Christina Vandervlist (who did the Doublecone Ring shown above). This ring, when thought of as a link, makes a beautiful chain, and if you build each unit around a sturdy and springy wire insert, you can gently open each form to rearrange your chain, remove individual units to wear (or sell) as rings, or change focals.
Creating a Cone is actually pretty simple. Start with a 2-bead ladder, and join the ends like an overlapping double worm. Once it’s joined, off you go with simple square stitch, using decreases to decrease for the pointy end and increases to increase for the flared end. The video at the bottom of the page shows every step, including how to pass through one or both spirals at the end of the Cone to tailor and finish it to your taste.
Beadwork by Jean Campbell, CGB Volume I
Our gallery shows Cones growing like mushrooms from a rope, as in Jean Campbell’s piece above, spilling off the ends of a lariat, holding felt balls, as bicones, boinkies…
and of course we’d love to see your creations.
. . .
All of our videos are filmed in HD. Use the YouTube Quality wheel at lower right to up your resolution, if necessary, and click it into full screen for a beader’s eye view of the process. Please feel free to share our videos and the ideas and pages on this web site and in our books. CGB is an open-source project.
. . .