Where I Find Patterns: Bead Loom

When I first started make bead loom bracelets, I used other people's patterns because I wanted to be sure that the pattern would work and look good! As my confidence grew, I wanted to experiment a little more with making my own patterns, which I did using BeadTool.

BeadTool allows users to easily create patterns for any beading, be it brick stitch, peyote, square stitch or beading on a loom. You can select the stitch that you want to use, which will change the grid, and select the colours you want to use from the full selection of Miyuki Delica palette listed on the program. Simply select the colour that you require, and draw in the squares! Easy! BeadTools offers a free download of this program so you can try it out, test it and see if it's something you want to buy. It's only £30, which for a beading program, isn't too bad at all! The downside is that with the free trial, you are unable to save your patterns you've created and you also can't screen capture them. I guess it makes sense though.

Another alternative is to use friendship bracelet patterns. My websites of choice for these are http://friendship-bracelets.net and http://braceletbook.com. If you click through to the "alpha" patterns, you will see a grid design, identical to a bead loom pattern! There are hundreds of premade patterns to suit every occasion, but also on both of these websites, you have the opportunity to create your own patterns and submit them to the site, so other people can use them! I have done this for a couple of patterns, such as this one:

 

And this one:

You can then read these patterns just like you would a regular bead loom pattern, where each square is a bead.

Here are a couple of examples:

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So that is where I find my bead loom patterns! Where are your favourite places to find bead loom patterns?