150 Woodcraft Birch Bark Roll sides of your spool will hold the spool, without allowing it to turn. Thread the loom as before, using the slots in the two bridges ; then gather them together in one bunch (or two or three if there are many ), slip the bunch through the open side of the holes in the base, (C) and fasten with a wooden peg. As the beading progresses, and becomes too long for the loom, wind the finished part up on the spool, and proceed to the end. . x x * The method of beading on a loom is very simple, and results are quick when once the mechanics are mastered. Attach the beading thread to the left hand warp thread about an inch in front of the top bridge. Put on as many beads as are required for the width of the band (one less _ than the number of threads), pass the beading thread under the warp threads, pushing one bead up between each two threads. Now double back the beading thread over the right hand warp thread and pass the needle back through the rcw of beads, making very sure that it always goes over the warp threads. Then string the beads for the next row and proceed as before. When the beading thread is almost exhausted, go back through as many beads as you can get through, and cut off the end close to the work. Rethread the needle, pass through the last row of beads again from right to left, and you are ready to start again. The band may be finished off with a square edge straight across, or with a tapered point, or with a fringe of beads.
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In making your beading designs, the most important point is to make them simple. The complicated curves and whirls are inartistic as well as difficult to accomplish in this medium. Do not try to draw realistic patterns; use symbolic forms. Some one has well said: ‘Symbolic forms send the imagina- tion soaring; realism chains the imagination to the earth.” These designs must be drawn on graph paper; but beware of the error of using square-boxed graph paper. A bead is not a square; it is almost (but not quite) twice as long as it is wide. There is a special beading graph paper made which is marked in correct proportions. The square-boxed
