Bead Calculator

www.bead-bordello.com

 I have a finger in a few projects and rather than mix them with my Bead Line web site, I've corralled them over at the Bordello. There is where you will find the software and applications that I and my partner, Ken Campbell have been working on.

Android Bead Calculator

If you have an Android Phone or Tablet, you might like what we've just finished.  This little calculator lets you put in how long of a bead crocheted rope you want.  Then you tell it the bead size and how many-around.  It gives you back how many inches to string, how much thread you need and how many grams of beads to buy.   Handy to have if you're in a bead store, think you might like to make a rope out of a certain bead, and can get your bead need estimates right then and there.  Just remember that all beads are not created equal and this only gives you an estimate.

Sorry, it doesn't help clean up your work table, just does some math for you.  Ken is as messy a beader as I am and this is what his table looks like.  I still do my math the hard way as I've not succumbed to being a cell phone carrier yet.

BCPD - Bead Crochet Software

2-17-2012 update: PC based only - no Apple i-anything, however  I've been told that it will work on Windows Virtual Machine on an Intel-based Mac.

It's done... finally done... BCPD

A new version of the bead crochet design software for the PC.  It doesn't have a lot of fancy bells and whistles, but it's elegantly simple and does what it does very well.  Bead Crochet Pattern Designer (BCPD) lets you do patterns up to 89-around and 85 rows.  Well, that's almost a purse, not a plain rope!

I did both the Urban Stripes and the Native Stripes projects with the software.  Of course I had "broken" versions,  "test this" versions. "do you like this" versions and I managed to find every fault and problem there was.  I still managed to design all of the sections for my two projects in spite of the problems along the way. I love not having to hand write a stringing table and being able to see how a pattern meets in the back of a rope.

The program has:

* 14 Bead color palette key, customizable with a color wheel

* 3-around to 89-around
* 2 to 85 row graph
* Rotating zipper graph and rope simulations
* Stringing table with bead counts
* Graph zooms to 5 levels
* You can open, save and print designs
*  HELP/Quick Start information

It will be for sale at Bead-Patterns in the next couple of days.  I just need to tie up some of the small details.

I'm excited that now it'll be easier for people to design their own patterns.

High Tech beading

The programmer, Ken, is beta testing BCPD for the Android tablet. Hmmmm, looks like women aren't the only ones who keep a very messy beading table. Ken says he is out of practice with the crocheting part, but what he designed on the tablet came out perfect in a rope. By this Fall, (cross your fingers) if you have an Android tablet or phone, you should have a portable bead crochet design program. Ken also says that it's very nice not to have papers laying around, taking up space. He strung his flag rope directly from the stringing table on the tablet.

Take it to your beading table?

Bead Crocheters . . .

What would you think of having your bead crochet patterns on an Android Tablet? Being able to design on the same tablet and taking it to your beading table to string from either the graph or a stringing table? Yes, I know it isn't an "i-anything", but the 8" Android tablets are way less expensive and more in the price range of beaders like myself.

Do any of you have (or plan to have) an Android Tablet? If this project keeps going like it is right now, The programmer will be looking for someone other than myself, to do some testing. What I've seen so far impresses me as it's so quick & responsive and I can rotate the graph to see how things line up. I can't wait to see how the stringing table, with the working line highlighted, looks. I'm excited and never realized something like this might be on my wish list. For heavens sake, I don't even use a cell phone.

If you want me to get back in touch with you, you'll need to give me your email or other way to contact you.

Oh, and another thought:
. . . other nice thing is that you can put other beading patterns on this if they are PDF's. This tablet (sigh, the programmer's, not mine) has the full content of "Bead Crochet Ropes" & "Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes" on it in PDF format and I can scroll through the pages with a flick of a finger. Could I even think about getting rid of my piles and piles of paper patterns?

Bead Crochet Ropes - DVD

You can now easily find the DVD for sale at abba dabba Productions. I will eventually have it for sale on my web site, but only after I get myself (and my beads) to Arizona and somewhat organized. Hopefully that will be around December 15th.

The most amazing thing, in my mind, is that my programmer friend in Arizona has taught himself to bead crochet from the video in about a week's time. This is a man who had never beaded or crocheted before. He has had to ask me a million questions about beads and bead crocheting while working on the Bead Crochet Element Designer software. He finally found success by using large wood beads and nylon cord. He called today to announce that he is now down to size 8/0 beads and is excited that he got it to work with "those small beads"! I won't say that it will work for everyone, but with a testimonial like that from a sixty year old, motorcycle, computer guy, maybe you should give it a try - it's a classroom on your computer or TV.

Of course it's snowing and there is freezing rain promised for tomorrow morning .... I'm suposed to be on the road for Arizona then. Catch you all later.

It's a Good Day

I just got notified that the first copies of my instructional DVD, "Bead Crochet Ropes" are in the mail to me. It's been a long wait, but it's finally published. Although I'm not too happy with the way I look, after all I have to realize that I'm not 20 anymore and will see 65 next year. My wrinkles are well earned! I'm pleased with the results and think it will be one more step in helping people learn the sometimes frustrating craft of tubular, slip-stitch bead crochet. The DVD's are available to purchase through the production company, Abba Dabba. Although they are not up on their web site yet, if you are interested, an email or phone call to them will work. They have an 800 phone number. Cost is $34.95 + shipping.

On the software front, I've finally gotten a couple of design elements up at Bead-Patterns. As these are for downloading and then importing into the Bead Crochet Element Designer, it's taken some time and work to figure out how to handle them. You don't get a pdf nor do you get something you can print out, you get a *.bce file that you have to save to your BCED folder and then open in the program.

There is a free design element, Boxed, to try things out and see just how it works and the Double V's you see here, for sale. If you try this out, let me know how your experience was. If I get good feedback, I will work on getting some design libraries up.

After weeks of frustrating, non-progress, in everything on my work table (or computer) things have jumped ahead overnight. Now if the weather would just quit being so cold, I'd be totally happy. It's 21 degrees, windy and snow flurries predicted!

Studio Play Time

Some how I got sidetracked this afternoon ..... I was seeing what was on the Internet for bead crochet "how-to's" and ran across a couple of videos on how to do Viking chain knit. That's something that has intrigued me for awhile. I've had this 40# spool of wire under my beading table for about 18 months, thinking it would work great to practice Viking knitting with wire.

See where this is going?

Yes, I then spent a couple of enjoying (frustrated) hours playing with wire. The big spool wire is a stainless alloy and tended to work harden very quickly. I couldn't manage to get the hang of weaving with it so I grabbed a spool of much softer, coated magnet wire that I use for twisted wire earrings. Hallelujah, it was just what I needed and soon had a rhythm going of lopping and pulling through. I still like the idea of the stainless alloy wire for this technique and the next spare moment I have will try that again. I really like the look of the chain after it is reduced through a draw plate. I don't think my first attempt is all that terrible and may use it in something.

I think this will be a very effective bead crochet pattern if I can ever get the danged thing strung right. I've taken out the strung bead sequence 4 times now. It doesn't help that it is 39 rows long and I was watching NASCAR races while trying to read, count and pick up beads. Maybe I need to try doing just one thing at a time when it's a long stringing table.

I spent the other day playing with a very rough version of the next iteration of bead crochet design software and came up with 6 rather neat patterns. Now I just have to get them strung (correctly!) and worked up. I guess I'd better do it at my work table without the TV going!

Bead Crochet Tip:

If you want to set up a travel bracelet project and don't want a big 'ol spool in your kit, then use a floss bobbin and wind 10 yards of thread onto it. That's what you see in the photo and you can find them in the embroidery section of craft and sewing stores. Ten yards is an ample supply of thread for at least a 9" bracelet and enough extra to handle any errors you might have to cut out. It makes for a very compact on-the-go bead crochet kit.

Almost Done - For Me!

In between other projects, I've been working on this rope for myself. I have a set of white and black ropes that are my personal dress up and travel necklaces. However, truth be told, my wardrobe leans more to sage, dusty pinks, lime and hot pinks. So I need another set of grab ' go ropes for myself. I think this one will do nicely, especially paired with one that is predominately the pink you see above. Now I need to finish the last inch and join the ends. I'd better hurry as I will need them later this week.

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Understanding Bead Crochet:

I have the facility of being able to see a design from the flat graph paper. However lately I've been trying to explain the mechanics of it to my programmer/friend as we explore the next possibilities in bead crochet software. Thus, I went to bed with a headache last night. It would be much, much easier if he would learn to bead crochet!

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You read a graph from the bottom up, left to right. The worst of it is that you string up the graph and crochet down the graph. Remember: "the last bead strung is the first bead crocheted". This is especially important when you want to add on to your rope and match a design. You need to think backwards, and string your beads that way.

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I never thought I'd revert back to crocheting white beads and marking them with a Sharpie. It was the only way I could think of to show just where each bead from the graph was on a rope. And I learned something ..... it doesn't make a lick of difference if you start stringing with bead 1 or bead 36, the pattern comes out the same. Duh, I should have known that as I did know that you needed a reverse stringing table to be able to add onto a rope and match up a pattern! Try teaching something to someone else and see what you manage to learn yourself.

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I did get a chuckle explaining that you can add on to only one end of a rope. Because of the way the loops are formed, the other end is sort of sealed. Light went on and I brought up a dog food bag, or birdseed bag.... pull the string loops one way and the thread just zips off; pull the other end of the string and you have the tightest, non-moving, knotted piece of string.

All of this mental exercise is because we want to be able to have a software package that can go get design elements and put them together to make larger pattern pieces. To do that, you have to really understand the mechanics of the craft at a deeper level. Almost more than I ever wanted to know!

It's Done - BCED that is

Bead Crochet Element Designer is done and up for sale. You can find it at Bead Patterns or Sova Enterprises as a download, for $30. I'm so excited that this is finally a reality after more than a year's worth of hard work. In my wildest dreams, I never expected to find myself on the authoring end of a computer program at retirement age!



There is more information about the program and what it does at Bead Line Studios. It's not a fancy program with loads of bells and whistles. It does one thing, and does it very well. It allows you to graph bead crochet patterns and see what they actually look like on a rope. The colors are limited to only 9, and we've joked that the programmer is color-blind, but with the stringing table printout, it's easy to make bead substitutions.

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A design like this is difficult to see and graph on the traditional slanted flat graph. With BCED I had it completed in about five minutes. I could rotate the rope and see that it would work right away. I printed out the stringing table and was stringing it immediately. The design crocheted up without having to go back and make several sample pieces to get it all right. The hard part was not fiddling with the design to see what else I could come up with. One evaluator said that the program was better than Windows solitaire for plain play fun.
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Now that the software is over at Bead Patterns, I can finish getting some pattern sets completed to add. I'm doing sets of 8 to 9 patterns in a group that you will be able to purchase and import directly into the program. Then you can either use them directly or fiddle with them to make them your own patterns.

Did I say that I was excited?

Designing Bead Crochet Elements

I haven't gotten a lot of beading done in the last 6 to 8 months, but I have been doing a lot of work that will make bead crochet graphing as easy as falling off of a log. I'm even so far behind on my Bead Journal Project that I'm going to have to drop out as I'll never catch up at this point.

Instead of writing a third book on Bead Crochet ropes, I've been collaborating with a computer friend, Ken, on creating a software program for graphing bead crochet designs. It's finally to the point that I want to show it off and let people know that it's coming. It'll go to bead fairies for testing next week. We'll ask themand to try and break it as well as find any bugs and flaws . It should be ready for release around mid-June of this year. Watch Bead Line Web site for announcements. It'll be for sale through my good friends at Bead-Patterns. There will also be designs sold on Bead Patterns that will import directly into this program.

Sneak Preview:

Bead Crochet Element Designer is a software program that will allow you to import bead crochet elements, change the bead colors, change the design itself and save your design. You will be able to design on a graph or on the rope itself. The fantastic thing is that you can twirl the rope to see what your design will look like in real life. We all know that the flat graph is useful, but requires that you visualize what the finished rope will look like. Too many times we've had to actually crochet a sample only to find out that it wasn't quite right. Once you have a design you like, just click one button and up pops the stringing table for the design on the screen. When you're ready to get out the beads, just print out your design and you can take it (with stringing table) to your beading table and get to work.

The program will come with 6 to 8 designs that you can use right away.

If your eyesight is as mature as mine is (like, almost blind!) there is a zoom feature that allows you to blow up the graph itself.


I'm excited and have been using it to refine my own designs without having to crochet several samples to make sure things look like what I thought they would.

We envisioned this as a true entry level design program, thus there are not a lot of frills and extras. You get one size bead in 9 set colors and will have to pick your own colors and bead size to substitute for the bead letters A through I. It is limited to 14 graph rows, but can handle 5-around through 9-around. I just looked in my books and there are very few designs that go beyond 12 graph rows.

Now maybe I can get back to actually crocheting some of the neat new designs I've come up with.