Tiger-Striped Beads – a great beginner bead that is forgiving and fun! Many artists have played with this style, and there are several nice tutorials. This one is long out of print, so I thought it might be fun to see how I teach this bead in my beginner’s class.

Materials I used (and feel free to substitute):

Moretti/Effetre Glass

T-064, Black,

P-204, White

T-014, Medium Amber or T-012, Light Amber

Optional Tools

Hand-Held Marver

Grooved Marver

This style of soft glass bead offers beginners a chance to practice essential beadmaking skills—making twisties, applying twisties (or stringer), and encasing. Although twisties can be purchased and making them is challenging, the skills developed in making your own twisties will stand you in good stead. Warming the rods without gathering them, forming a molten mass while remaining in control, and balancing the need to rapidly twist with a gradually increasing pull are skills that combine to produce well-made and even twisties.

The application of twisties to the surface of a bead can also be quite frustrating for the beginner. It is important to take the time to find that “sweet spot” in or near the flame, where skinny twisties will soften and become pliable but not merely melt into a ball. This is a valuable precursor skill to the application of stringer, which can be even more challenging. Finally, this bead offers a simple and successful method of encasing, another building-block skill.

The good news about the tiger-striped bead is that it is forgiving. Virtually any twistie will yield successful results—be it short, uneven, or just plain ugly. Make the twistie and then get it down on the surface of the bead. There is no pattern or design required. Once it is encased, you will see your beginner missteps and mistakes transformed. Down the road, when the basic skills become comfortable or tiresome, the variations mentioned at the end of this article will expand your horizons.

Put on your safety glasses, light your torch, and give tiger-striped beads a try! Remember, be sure to properly anneal and clean your beads.

Making Simple Twisties

Step 1

Warm about 1-1/2" of both a white rod and a black rod that are of approximately equal diameter.

I find it easiest to do this with my hands in the overhand position (gripping the rods like bicycle handles). Rotate the rods while moving them in and out of the back of the flame, where it is cooler. Neither rod should begin to gather into a ball, but eventually, move one color in a little closer to the heat of the flame, so that one rod can be applied to the other and they stick together with an overlap of 1 to 1-1/2" inches. If they don’t stick, one or both rods aren’t hot enough. If they are too soupy, rest out of the flame for a moment to let the glass stiffen.

Step 2

Focus the flame on one rod at the point where the doubled portion ends.

In this project, we are focusing on the black rod. Be sure to rotate the entire bundle of glass. It’s all connected, so if you are rotating the white rod, the black rod is also rotating. When the black rod is soft—about the stiffness of al dente spaghetti—bend it at right angles to the bundle so that it forms an “L.” Then bend it back in line with the bundle. This bending action is called lapping.

Step 3

Lap the rods first on one side of the doubled portion and then the other.

This ensures that each single rod is attached to both rods in the bundle. For example, if you were to pull the white rod, both black and white would stretch out.

Step 4

To heat the bundle of glass, rotate the bundle in the flame.

Focus the heat on the seam between the colors and alternate the direction of the rotation so that the colors do not slump into each other. Be sure to heat both sides of the bundle evenly. If it becomes too soupy to control, raise the bundle above the flame while still rocking it to and fro and then resume heating it in a cooler part of the flame.

Step 5

Continue until the seam between the two colors is completely molten and indistinct.

Remove the bundle from the flame and let it rest briefly while still rocking it to keep it on center. Out of the flame, begin to twist the rods in opposite directions as quickly as possible while slowly pulling the rods apart. As the glass stiffens, you should begin to pull more rapidly until you have twisted all of the molten glass and the twisty has become stiff. With practice, this method will produce about ten inches of twisty. As a beginner, any length of twisty will be valuable for this bead, and irregularities or unevenness in the twists will make the tiger stripes even more authentic! Try to make a few twisties before moving on to the next step.

Applying Twisties to a Base Bead

Step 6

Using black glass, prepare a cylinder bead.

The bead should be about 3/4" wide and as small in diameter as possible (This bead tends to grow!)

Step 7

Apply the twisty to cover the base bead.

This is a low-pressure opportunity to practice applying twisties. A random pattern of coverage is what you are shooting for. In this picture, I have positioned the twisty on the rightmost edge of the flame and slightly below the flame so that the twisty is melted by the radiant heat of the flame from my Minor torchand can be softened more, if necessary, by raising the bead up into the flame. Notice that the base bead is not in the flame. Beginners tend to melt through the twisty as part of the struggle for heat control. In this bead, that doesn’t matter. If a twisty melts, just begin again in a different spot on the bead.

Step 8

Look for a random and organic-looking coverage of the base bead.

Step 9

Heat the twisties so that they slump down onto the surface of the bead.

Doing this before you encase the bead eliminates the undercuts that would otherwise cause air pockets. You can gently marver the bead with a light pressing motion, but avoid rolling the bead repeatedly on the marver since this will blur the black-and-white pattern.

Step 10

Notice that the twisties are melted onto the surface of the bead, which is smooth.

Encasing the Bead

Step 11

Keep the bead warm in the back of the flame while you form a large gather of glass on the amber rod.

Using the rod as your “brush,” paint the gather in coils onto the surface of the warm bead. To avoid trapping air, each coil of glass should be applied to partially overlap the previous coil. If your twisties are distorted by the encasing, the base bead is too hot. If you cannot wrap coils all the way around the bead, your gather is too small or your encasing layer too thick.

If you desire an encasing that extends around to the bead holes, coil the encasing so that it is about 1/8" wider than the base bead. This extra glass on either end can be tucked toward the hole using a marver, knife, or spatula-shaped tool.

Step 12

Add extra encasing glass to the center of the bead.

This helps to achieve a more barrel-like shape, rather than a cylinder.

Step 13

Heat the entire bead one last time to smooth the coils and shape the bead.

Variations on the Theme

Step 14

Select any shape that you like.

This bead can be made in virtually any shape. An attractive pendant shape results if a molten, barrel-shaped bead is permitted to slump slightly into an oval shape.

Step 15

The oval can be gently mashed flat.

It’s important to remember, however, that the bead thickness should always be three times the diameter of the bead’s hole in order to avoid cracking the bead. Put another way, both the front and back of the pendant must be at least as deep as the bead hole. Don’t forget to “fire polish” the chill mark—the circular impression in the glass caused by the cold tool—by directing the flame at each side of the pendant to remelt the surface.

Step 16

Use a grooved marver to add a pattern to the pendant’s surface.

This will give any bead more visual interest.

Other versions of a tiger-style bead can be made with twisties that are black and orange or black and ivory. Since ivory is a very soft color, if it overwhelms the black in the twisty, try twisting rods of unequal diameter with the black rod slightly larger than the ivory rod. Finally, try leaving the bead unencased, or only partially encase the bead leaving spots where the twistie colors poke through to the surface.