Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Playing with my beads...Bicones - Burgundy Blue Zircon Blend

SWAROVSKI BURGUNDY BLUE ZIRCON BLEND BICONES
I only tried these bicones with one bracelet pattern but with two different seed bead colors. I tried the Metallic Chocolate beads first but decided that they are too dark. I do like the sample with Dark Bronze seed beads though. Both samples were made with Deborah Roberti's "Venetian Bands" pattern which you can buy HERE. I have 40 of these bicones which will leave me plenty to make a pair of earrings to go with my bracelet.

I bought these bicones from Artbeads.com HERE. One thing that I noticed while working with these particular bicones is that the quality isn't very good. I assumed that anything made by Swarovski would be of the highest quality considering how much they cost. What I found was that some of the bicones in this batch have a definite point on one end and are just chopped off on the other. And, some are chopped on both ends. That's the kind of thing that I expect when I buy cheap Chinese crystals but not from Swarovski. So far I haven't noticed any defects like this in the Czech bicones that I've tried so I think I'll stick to buying those from now on and give Swarovski a miss. I'm not keen on Swarovski's colors much anyway.


Venetian Band (about 28 bicones)

  • 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
  • 4mm bicones Swarovski "Burgundy-Blue Zircon Blend"
  • 3mm fire polished beads "Dark Bronze"


Venetian Band (about 28 bicones)

  • 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457D)
  • 4mm bicones Swarovski "Burgundy-Blue Zircon Blend"
  • 3mm fire polished beads "Bronze"
 

2 comments:

  1. Try them with a burgundy or dark red to bring out the burgundy in the bicone. They seem lost with these colors.

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    1. The bicones are so dark that I don't think there's much that can be done to bring out the colors. They almost look black against my wrist. Perhaps it would be better to use them in something where they are added on top of other lighter colored beads.

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