June, 2020 - BeadDiagrams.com

This is a simple geometric design, which encases a 10mm round bead or crystal inside a cage made of #5 (12mm) bugle beads, 8/0 seed beads, and 15/0 seed beads (plus a 6/0 or 8/0 seed bead for the jump ring to go through). I had played with this simple geometric shape in the past, but had never been satisfied with the exposed sharp edges of the bugle beads, or how visible the thread was. In addition, the bugles would shift around the joints (where the 4 bugle edges come together), making it uneven. I then came up with the idea of covering each joint with a 8/0 and 15/0 seed bead to both cover the sharp edges and hide the thread. At first, I struggled with finding a thread path that would not go through the 15/0 seed beads too many times. After many tries, I found the best solution was to construct the entire bead cage first, then cover the joints at the end (as opposed to trying to incorporate them while building the cage). The 8/0 seed beads also served to stabilize the joints from shifting around, which was a bonus. After I nailed down this method, I was able to quickly make many of them to try different color combinations. I hope you enjoy this free beading pattern!