Make a Heritage Beaded Ring

There is something so special about family heirlooms.  It really doesn't matter what the heirloom is.  It could be furniture, jewelry, quilts, books, or even old clothing.  Receiving a family treasure is priceless. 

A couple of years ago after my husband's grandpa passed away, the family began sorting through all the items left in his house.   As I was looking through a dresser drawer, I came across a little cloth bag that was ratted and torn.  When I opened up the bag I found hundreds of little red beads.  I was so excited!  I knew immediately those beads were going to have to be turned into something special.  They belonged to my husband's grandma who passed away almost 30 years ago.

Fast forward a couple of years... It  was now time for those beads to make an appearance.  I had never made any thing with beads that was more complicated than alternating colors and stringing.  Like this DIY Safety Pin Bracelet.  Yet I wanted to try.  I really wanted an easy to follow tutorial, and ran across this great video on youtube.

I did follow the tutorial pretty closely for the three sections in the middle.  My beads (being so old) had teeny tiny holes.  Because of that, I was not able to make the back of the ring as she was explaining.   So I improvised, and came up with my own pattern for the back.

Here is the pattern I ended up using:

The top set of beads are strung on one of the fishing lines and the bottom set is strung on the other.  Both fishing lines go through the larger beads.  It really isn't very complicated. Stringing them this way  allowed me to use some larger beads for the back so that I did not need to double through as much.

How about you?  Do you have some heritage beads lying around which are waiting to be made into something special?

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