Classic Earrings

These earrings are based on the lovely Volta design from koronczarnia.pl. Apparently beads drilled to dangle aren't fashionable where I shop at the moment, so I use a triplet of seed beads at the bottom ring.

I prefer everything to look even and perfect so I generally work frontside. It's nice and easy with this pattern, just the chains are backside. Larks head joins make this super neat and make it sit nice and flat without blocking or hardening. That does mean the chain joins are upside-down, but it makes it a bit more fun.

Edit: These earrings were gifted to my Mum, who felt awful when she suddenly wasn't wearing one of them. I've since stopped joining the hook fittings to a single picot, as the lost earring flipped up and slipped out. I'd recommend making a small thrown ring instead of the small picot at the top, or omitting it altogether and looping the fitting around Ring 2.

1 shuttle + ball

9 seed beads, 1 centre bead

lbp - long bead picot

jp - tiny joining picot

sdp - small, decorative picot

JC# - join to picot on chain #

JR# - join to picot on ring #

JR#B - join to long picot on ring # with bead

(#beads) - move # beads to working loop

(#b) - make picot with # beads

CL - close loop 

RW - reverse work

3 seed beads on shuttle

R1: 5 lbp 8 jp 3 CL

R2: 3 JR1 7 sdp 7 jp 3 CL

R3: 3 JR2 8 lbp 5 CL

RW C1: 2 jp 8

RW R4: 4 JR3B 9 jp 1 CL

R5: 1 JR4 9 lbp 4 CL

RW C2: 8 jp 2

The next set is basically a repeat, just with the beads instead of the hanging picot and some different joins.

R6: 5 JR5B 8 jp 3 CL

R7 (3beads): 3 JR1 7 (3b) 7 jp 3 CL

R8: 3 JR2 8 lbp 5 CL

RW C3: 2 JC2 8

RW R9: 4 JR8B 9 jp 1 CL

R10: 1 JR9 9 JR1B 4 CL

RW C4: 8 JC1 2

Cut ends long, tie off. Thread one end through chain join, thread seed, centre, seed beads on and thread through other chain join. Thread back through beads and tie off.

The earrings pictured are worked in Milford #20 Royal Blue with size 12 seed beads and 6mm centre beads.