How to Use the Ricks Beading Loom

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Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you how to Use the Ricks Beading Loom this is what the loom looks like it is a little different from a traditional beading loom the regular beading loom will leave you with all of your warp threads hanging off the ends in which case you would need to back loom weaving pieces but this beading loom only leaves you with two warp threads at the ends it's a lot less bulky and a lot more possible to used the loom woven piece without putting a back on it the loom does come with a user's guide that has instructions in it I'm going to show you how to do it just in case that's an easier way for you to follow your loom will come with four of these warp pegs. They have a little split in them. one of them is a spare you use three and it will come with three warp rods and one of those is a spare your warp rods in the storage position sit on these magnetics the first thing I want to do is pull off one of the little plastic ends slide it through these little loop here and here on the stocks the other things that come with the loom is your warp separator card this is just a laminated card if your lose it or it stops having a nice edge to it you can just use a playing card or business card cut in half so to do loom bead weaving you need some seed beads and delica's are going to give you a really nice even flat, uniform looking pieces of bead weaving because they have a much more uniform sizes and shapes I'm using an 10/0 size delica this is a little easier to get the hang of with a larger bead than a smaller bead. It would be a little easier to do a narrower strip to start with then I just have a nylon beading thread that I'm going to use and I have a size ten beading needle and some scissors one of the things that's different about the rick's beading loom is you need to determine the length of your piece before you start move the little wing nuts in order to adjust the position of this piece here and I'm not doing a very large piece because I'm just doing it to demonstrate for you so I'm gonna move mine down quite a bit measure from rod to rod and include the rid in your measurement so I only need a few inches in order to demonstrate I'm gong to move mine pretty close and then just tighten up both of those wing nuts to make your stuff nice and sturdy there then pull out the warp pegs take your beading thread leave it on the spool give yourself about an inch tail slide your thread into the slit in the warp peg and go around the peg a couple of times and bring your thread back through and then place the peg into the second slot the second little hole there take your spool of thread. Leave a little thread on the spool. You don't want to cut it unless you're spool to fit over this go over the warp threads past underneath and pull back around now anytime you're doing bead weaving on a loom, you need your warp threads and then when you weave across those warp threads your warp threads you will need one more thread than the number of beads you want in a row and every pass back and forth each pass is going to give you one thread. Make sure that you're counting back and forth and not just the full past but each direction you want to keep the tension on the thread that your pulling pretty snug. Don't bend the warp threads out of shape but keep it tight so I've got one two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and I'm just gonna do a piece that's eight beads wide just to demonstrate I'm going to go ahead and finish with mine now when you do your last past you wanna make sure that you are headed over the warp rods so if for example you are going to have a different number and you are going to end on this side, instead of going under you pull this last bead over because you need to have the tension to pull it down but mine is going to end on this end instead I'm doing an even-numbered beads mine will be going over go ahead and give yourself a nice sufficient tail of thread take another warp peg measure out where it's going to go into the hole slide the thread into the slit in the work peg around and back through go ahead and push the peg into the hole and if you're on this end push it into the corresponding hole and then you're going to tighten that up just like you would a guitar string if you're familiar with that twist on the peg until you have a nice tension now if you can even out the tension on your threads it's gonna make the first couple of rows a little easier to complete space them out somewhat close to the size and I want it to be and nicely even make sure those warp pegs are secure and the next thing we're going to do is take that warp separator you're going to go over under over under through each thread and make sure you go in the right order as they're wrapped around. Don't twisted or crossed and pull the warp separator card all the way down to the bottom warp rod there you're going to take a new length of thread and get a length that's about as long as you're comfortable working with and you need to tie off and a new thread as you run out and you would do that just the same way as you would with off loom weaving and we do have a video how to tie and add new thread in bead weaving if you're not familiar with that process thread your needle take about a six inch tail you're going to go into the slit on that last warp thread wrap it around a couple times and back the other way through the slit and now we're going to go into the first hole pick up a number of beads that you've decided what will be in each row for your project bring your needle from left to right under your work threads pull the beads down not all the way just about half or two-thirds of the way down the thread you can put your needle down the little magnet here to keep it out-of-the-way for the very first row you're going to bring a thread up over the warp separator and you want your beads pull it down to rest right on top of the warp separator your going to use your finger to hold the beads in place and then arrange your warp threads so that there is one thread to either side of each bead we do need to move them around and make sure that your threads are all in order and there's not too between a bead just like that each bead has a thread to either side including on the outside don't let them double up be careful they move around really pretty easily at the very beginning. The beginning is a way harder than the rest if you can get a hang of it in the beginning you'll be fine then we're going to pass our needle back through from right to left over the warp threads in the user manual he does suggest using the needle eye first, you can go point first or eye first and it's a little easier to go above the warp threads and not hit the warp thread if you use the eye first be careful because that means that the end in your hand is sharp you don't wanna poke yourself with it take the eye of your needle and angle it upwards towards you a little bit as you go back through to make sure that you're going up on top of the warp threads and then pull all the way through now if you went underneath any of the warp threads accidentally you'll have a bead fallout so you need to go back and pull the thread and start again so that's the first row pull that tight we're going to do one more row before we remove the warp separator get your designated number beads on the needle pull it down a little bit bring your needle from the left to the right under the warp threads pull it down and use your finger to push the beads up through the warp threads once you get the beads in their spot which is much easier after the first row and you're going to get your needle you're going to go back through the beads from right to left on top of the warp threads so you can decide if you're more comfortable using the needle eye first or point first and then pull that tight now you're going to pull the warp separator card out and then just take your first two rows push them all the way down against the warp rod and then pull to pull up the slack on your warp thread and push them all the way. You don't want any extra space here and then you're just going to continue doing rows in the same manner pull the beads down bring your needle underneath from left to right use your finger to push the beads up through the warp threads one to either side of each bead bringing your needle back over the warp threads from right to left and pull and you're going to continue doing rows until you fill the entire warp thread and your ending right as close to this warp thread as possible Once you've done your loom weaving all the way up to the top we're going to go ahead and try to fit as many rows as you can all the way up to the warp rod and I have pushed mine down pretty tight. You don't wanna rumple it you are going to absorb the access thread that goes over the warp threads so if it's pretty tight beforehand it's going to be less loose later is the way I look at it I'm going to do just my last row it can be a little tricky to do the last row or two just like the first ones can be a little tricky just because the way that the warp threads go over and under the rod there I actually find that sometimes it's easiest to do this a few beads at a time push that bead up through even though you have those threads going around this way. It's a little tricky this is another thing that's harder to do with a smaller bead I do suggest practicing with like a 10/0 before you try an 11/0 you can see that I'm using up all the space, all the way from one warp rod to the next you want to leave as little extra space there as possible go back through and tie off and you can decide how you're going to attach this, how you're going to finish it, what you're going to do with it whether or not you want to tie off before or if you're going to need that end thread there I'm just going to tie off to get this thread out of my way since I'm just showing you how to use the loom and again you would just tie off the same way as you do when you do off bead weaving tie a knot and then weave through some extra beads now we're going to remove the warp threads and pull the threads off and then remove the warp rods slide this out right out of the bead work if you've done loom weaving on a traditional bead loom then you know that now usually you have lots and lots of warp threads hanging loose all over the place so as you can see what we have here is just a little loop at the end instead so what you're gonna do is just gently shift and spread the beads with your fingers you're going to just take up that access you wanna make sure you don't have any big gaps any where. This is one of the reasons why if you've pulled it tighter while it was on the loom you're going work a little better now because you've got a little bit more room for those bead to fill in and so this is the beginning of my warp threads so I'm tie that off and then you only have to warp threads to tie off and weave in and you can use those threads to connect findings or a clasp or you can just weave them in and have a nice freestanding piece, so it's much much easier to use your loom piece of the Rick's loom without having to back it the way you'd traditionally for a regular loom. Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!