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| Colorful quilt-inspired square stitch bead earrings |
I love how handmade quilts mix color, pattern, and a sense of comfort. These earrings are a simple take on that idea — like a little patchwork quilt you can wear.
They're made with Toho size 11 round beads using square stitch (here’s a square stitch tutorial). The design is straightforward, but the inspiration comes from something timeless and full of personality.
If it looks like a blind person chose the colors — that’s because one did. I closed my eyes and randomly picked twelve tubes. One turned out to be the wrong size, and another got dropped. These are the ten I ended up using:
- metallic iris brown (11-83)
- opaque terra cotta (11-46)
- transparent frost cobalt (11-8)
- opaque frost pine green (11-47HF)
- opaque luster pale mauve (11-127)
- opaque rainbow white (11-401)
- opaque sour apple (11-44)
- Ceylon innocent pink (11-145)
- opaque luster pumpkin (11-129)
- opaque turquoise (11-55)
Toho round beads are great for square stitch — their uniform size and shape let them stack neatly, while still keeping a bit of that organic, handmade feel. It’s a lot like how a patchwork quilt comes together: precise, but with personality.
Materials list:
In addition to Toho size 11 round seed beads, the other materials used are a size 12 tulip beading needle and KO beading thread in beige.
Why a blind pick of bead colors?
I picked the colors at random simple because it saved me from agonizing over more than 150 tubes trying to find the “perfect” color combo. With a small, random selection that were appropriate for the project, I had just enough to move forward with what was in my head. My choices within those colors were still spontaneous, and the whole process was faster and easier — which was the goal. And hey, it even led to some color combinations that I would not have tried otherwise. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Colorful Quilt Square Stitch Bead Earring Pattern
Here's what the pattern looks like when I added it to BeadTool beading software. Note that the earrings don't layout exactly the same as the picture above because they turned over when I was adding them to the tool.
If I had drawn this beading design out in beading software first, would I have done things differently? Of course I would have! But I probably would have agonized so much that I wouldn't have made progress for days.
In any event, one thing I noticed right away while drawing it out,was that it would be less busy if I eliminated the dots in the center of each square.
This is the revised design which I find much more pleasing. I'm still deciding if it is worth stitching up to see the difference. Perhaps I should make some other changes to layout the colors in a more pleasing way. At the very least, my gut was telling me I don't like the pink and blue beaded loops that the earrings hang from.
So, I changed the bead loops to black. Visually, it feels more balanced — like swapping mismatched picture frames so they don’t clash. Before, it was like having one gold frame and one silver side by side; it drew attention in the wrong way.
I also stitched another version of the quilt-inspired earrings using the same square-and-dot pattern—but this time with size 11 Delica beads instead of round seed beads.
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| Compare quilt-inspired square stitch beadwork in round beads vs. delica beads |
There’s a noticeable difference in size and appearance between the two versions, even though both use size 11 beads. Delicas have a more cylindrical, uniform shape that creates a tighter, more structured look, while round seed beads result in a softer, more organic texture.
Delicas can also be a bit more challenging to work with, especially in square stitch. Their flat sides make it harder to slide your needle under the beads, so you need to be more careful and it takes more time.
So cute! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you! Glad you like them.
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