Beading Market
Shop for beadwork made by your fellow beaders at the 3Dbeading.com Beading Market!
Welcome to the 3-D beaded small cat pattern instructions! If you have any difficulty following this tutorial, please post a comment at the bottom of the page on which you are stuck, and we'll do our best to help!
Before you begin ...
| Materials: 2.5 meters of fishing line 50 orange 6mm round plastic beads 19 pink 6mm round plastic beads 4 yellow 6mm round plastic beads 2 black 6mm round plastic beads 1 blue 6mm round plastic bead (can also use seed beads for all beads in the pattern) Time required: About 2 hours Techniques: Beadweaving, right angle weave Difficulty: Moderate |
Step 1:Welcome to the tutorial for the very first 3-D beaded animal pattern on 3Dbeading.com!! It was a challenge cramming it into my busy pharmacy school schedule, but it's here, and with summer coming, hopefully many more will follow soon! This is also the longest beading tutorial yet on this website (and this is the easiest animal!). In the particular model which I have done for the tutorial, I used tabby cat colours, but you are free to use any colour scheme that pleases you (in the picture to the left, you'll see a black and white kitty, which I used as my model in making this tutorial)! The beads I used are the bottom half of the picture to the left. See the last page of this tutorial to see the picture of the finished product that we are going to make. It's a cute tabby kitty with a big light pink spot on her orange face over her eye, and a button blue nose! The materials for this pattern are an approximately 2-meter-long piece of fishing line, and approximately one hundred round plastic beads (or any bead of your choice, as long as it makes the pattern look okay; swarovski is okay for all you big spenders!). I have now completely finished this tutorial, text, pictures and all, so enjoy!
Step 2:This is a picture of my black and white kitty model, from the top view (top of the cat's head). What I am showing you with the red dots over those 4 beads is that this is where we start making the pattern. We are going to make a circle of four beads to start out our cat pattern, and this is where they fit in the pattern (the forehead, so to speak, I suppose).
The kitty pattern shown in the picture is made entirely of seed beads, so that is another option for you, if you don't have enough plastic beads/swarovskis, or whatever else you'd use (don't use pony beads though! They are too bulky). The only disadvantage is the seed beads make a very small kitty indeed, and because seed beads are made of glass (a heavy material), and because the cat's head is much larger than its body, the kitty made of seed beads tends to fall forward a lot. Also, you have to use the biggest size of seed beads. The smaller size makes a very minute kitty indeed (invisible to the naked eye, LOL! Just joking).
Step 3:So let's get started. Now we are making the circle of 4 beads to start the pattern. For the black and white kitty pattern, I would have used two white beads and two black beads. But for the tabby cat pattern, where I made only one of the two eye areas pink, and the other one orange, we will only be using one pink bead, and 3 orange beads for this circle of four beads. So basically, as shown in the picture, string 4 beads (3 orange, 1 pink) onto your 2-meter piece of fishing line, and centre them. Then, cross the last orange bead that you strung (which is marked by red dot in the picture) with both ends of the fishing line approaching the bead from opposite sides, as shown. After you've crossed, again make sure the beads are centred on the fishing line to make sure you don't waste any fishing line (remember that you are limited to the shorter of the two ends you are working with).
Step 4:This step is basically showing you the end result of the previous step. Your circle of four beads is pulled tight to form the cat/kitty's forehead!
Step 5:This is a combination of steps, but they are very simple. So, at the end of the previous step, you have both ends of the fishing line emerging from the orange bead marked by a red dot. To one end of the fishing line (that depicted by a black arrow in the picture), add 3 new orange beads, followed by 1 new pink bead (marked by a blue dot). Then cross the pink bead with the other end of the fishing line (that depicted by a red arrow). To this same end of the fishing line, after crossing through the pink bead, add 3 more pink beads on the end of it.
