Nylon Cord Size Comparison

I am often asked about the cord I use for making my micro macrame jewelry, so I thought it might be time for a post on the subject.  I use nylon bead cord, either C-lon or Superlon brand and I use the .5mm size for the majority of my pieces.

Both C-lon and Superlon cords come in four sizes (and lots of colors).  To make the comparison a little more visual, I made a little macrame piece with each of the four cord thicknesses.  

I hope that helped clear up some of the confusion about cord sizes and brands.  If you'd like more information and photos, please check out the post I did here.

An Experiment

Well, that could have gone better.  This mess of sickly colored cord is not what I was hoping for.  Let me fill you in:  I got a wild hair last week and wanted to make a micro macrame bracelet with the look of soft, worn denim.  I wanted cord in a really faded blue color and I really was hoping for a bit of mottling in the color instead of even color on the cord.  I took some bits of cord (both c-lon and s-lon nylon bead cord) and stuck them in some diluted bleach for a while and got this:

There was one major flaw in that first experiment, though, as I had forgotten to keep a control group.  I figured I would remember exactly what shades I'd started with, silly me, and ended up clueless. I do know the one that looks sort of mustard yellow was a green color to start with, but I'm not sure which green.  *sigh*  So I started over, and this time I took a photo with the original colors.  There is again a mix of c-lon and s-lon cord, all in the .5mm size.

I left the cord to soak in some bleach, diluted a bit, but still pretty strong (and no, Clorox isn't paying me anything for showing this photo of their product).

I came back to check after half an hour and found that the lighter blue cord I'd hoped would look like worn denim had turned into this:

After only 30 minutes!!  You can still see traces of the original blue, but most of the color is completely gone.  I continued checking on the remaining cords at hourly intervals.  After almost six hours, I took them all out and rinsed them well.  This is what I got:

The colors didn't change after drying, either, so here's what I discovered: The light blue cord bleached out in a heartbeat into a totally undesirable shade of yuk.  The mint green cord also bleached some and ended up a ugly shade of mucus green.  The four remaining cords, bright blue, orange, teal and purple, didn't change at all.  Even after six hours of soaking in bleach, there was no change in color!  

I'd say even though I didn't achieve my intended goal, this experiment was a partial success since I still learned something valuable.  It looks to me like there's a 67% chance your micro macrame bracelet won't change color even if you get bleach on it.  And that, as we say in Nebraska, is the rest of the story.

Red!?! Oh, Horror of Horrors!

When I was asked to work up a couple of micro macrame demo pieces using natural stone beads, I said sure!  And when asked what stone, I said, "Anything as long as it isn't red or orange."  As you can probably guess from the post title and the photo above, the beads I received were Mexican Red Snowflake jasper.  RED is even in the name of the stone, for crying out loud.  And if that's not bad enough, it's paired with brown.  *sigh*  Well, I'm not one to back down from a challenge or break my word, so I figured I'd better find some inspiration.  And believe me, I hunted.  I even ended up in the fabric department looking for interesting color combinations and finally found a paisley that added some unexpected coral tones in with the red and brown.  Okay, I'm thinking, I can work with that.  So I dug through my stash and came up with this:

Now we're talking.  My next challenge was to fit my cord through the beads.  One cord would pass easily through all of them, but for the design I had in mind, I needed to get two cords through the hole.  Uh, huh.  I resorted to dipping my cord ends in Fray Check, which I don't usually have to do any more, and I had to use the bead reamer on a couple of the beads, but I did get them to work.

Well, now.  That's kind of interesting, if I do say so myself!  The central stones are 8mm and the ones around that are 4mm.  I used dark red, brown and a peachy shade of cord and accented with glass seed beads in dark red, peach and coral-lined crystal.  Then I had a thought (shush - it happens!).

What if I brought a little turquoise color to the party?  

I heard a choir of angels singing in the background, I swear I did.  Now that's my style - even with the natural stones and the warm colors.  I won.  I worked through it and conquered my fear.  I am triumphant!  Okay, so maybe it's not as good as curing cancer or making it to the top of Everest, but I'm feeling pretty good and I take that wherever I can get it.

And now, I think I'll reward myself by snuggling up in a blanket on the couch in front of the fireplace and watching a cheesy movie.  Hopefully I can find something with dinosaurs.  Or ancient Egyptians.  Or ghosts...  

Micro Macrame Earrings - Week 23 of The Year of Jewelry

I can't believe we're up to Week 23 of The Year of Jewelry already, but it's true.  One new piece of jewelry, every week, for a year.  No problem!  The suggested theme for this week was Twins, but I always have to be me - just a little bit "off" from the rest.  I decided to make earrings, but just for fun, I added the interesting little twist of different cord colors.  Well, not actually different cord colors - I just reversed the cord colors.  So one pair had green cord with a pop of purple and the other has purple with green.  

I can't believe how different they look with only that one change.

The beads are all the same, I swear.  Anyway, that's my take on "Twins".  Oh, and if you're diggin' the purple and green color scheme, check out the matching bracelet here!

Year of Jewelry Week Week 22 and a Lesson on Bead Cord for Knotting

Our theme for this week at the Year of Jewelry is Circles, Squares, Triangles and I found this great bangle with a square bezel to inspire me.  I used Superlon MICRO bead cord to make an itty bitty piece of macrame, and believe me, keeping that tiny stuff straight is a challenge.  I used 42 cords to make this piece and it's slightly under 1.5".

To give you some perspective, let me show you the four different weights of Superlon cord:

The first spool in turquoise is the S-lon Micro Bead Cord.  It has a diameter of .115mm and there are 287 yards on that spool.  The next spool in blue is Superlon (or S-lon) Fine Bead Cord.  It's somewhere between the Micro and the plain old bead cord and has 118 yards on a spool.  The lilac colored cord spool is the stuff just called Bead Cord (no micro or fine in the title).  This is the weight that I usually use for micro macrame.  It's .5mm and there are 77 yards on that spool.  The last spool in chartreuse is the Superlon Tex 400 cord.  It's .9mm and comes in a 35 yard spool.

The bead cord was the first weight introduced and is available in the most colors.  It will go through most 11/0 seed beads once (as long as you are using quality seed beads like Miyuki or Toho).  The weight and size are really nice for the jewelry pieces I usually make.

The heavier Tex 400 cord is almost twice the thickness of the regular stuff.  It works well for pieces like multi strand necklaces and for bigger, chunkier pieces.  

 

Fine bead cord isn't that much smaller than the regular bead cord, but it feels very different in finished pieces.  Bracelets made with this cord are more flexible and feel more "slinky", if that makes any sense.  

Micro cord is almost like thread.  It is really small.  I can't imagine trying to knot a whole piece using this weight of cord, but it is excellent for fine detail work and makes awesome focal pieces.  I did the same pattern for the pieces in the next photo, but used Tex 400 for the ecru colored one, regular bead cord for the one in purples and micro cord for the little piece. 

There.  Now you're an expert on bead cord and you can better appreciate the fact that the macrame piece on this bangle is 1" square.