Do We Need a Figure Skating Crystal Support Group?

I can't remember how I used to figure this out. I do know, however, that there were something on the order of 1,000 crystals on my daughter's nationals dress and the coach said it wasn't sparkly enough. And looking at the pictures now, he was right.

I worked on this over the weekend and am just about ready to place my order. I tested on gluing some inexpensive crystals on one of her practice dresses I had just finished sewing. Definitely something I will be doing when I know there will be few interruptions.

While crystal has come down in price over the past few years, it's still an expensive bit of glass. Can I offer some advice as a Beader? Main question is, does it HAVE to be crystal? You can get away with crystal in strategic, highly visible areas, and using good glass beads in other places.

Check out the local beading stores and inquire about tricut or triangular round beads in two tone glass. There's a dark color on the inside with a lighter, contrasting color on the outside. These beads offer a powerful shine just based on color, and are much cheaper than crystal. ($5.00 for a tube of hundreds.)The color alone gives better visual interest than just sparkle. Czech Glass Charlottes also are coming a long way in the Sparkles. Japanese Seed beads come in some great colors and offer silver-lined versions; transparent colored glass with silver inside the hole. I've also found copper lined beads with a great glitter. Stitching these guys can take some practice, but it's worth it. A $8 box of a zillion beads versus $6 for twenty four 6mm Swarovski montees. You can get beading thread with some stretch to it, but practice first when embroidering seeds with elastic thread. (Don't stretch when beading.) Best part, if you can master beading bezels for bigger stones, you can use the Swarovski Rivolis. http://www.firemountaingems.com/shopping.asp?sk...
Talk about Sparkle…

I guess my point is; I save my crystal for highly visible areas or things I want to accent; a leaf arrangement will have ONE crystal piece, the rest is glass. Crystal is great, but as Lead Crystal it's going to get heavy and it's very expensive. (Heavy is my main concern as a beader, I don't want ladies with stretched out earlobes.) I'm a raccoon, too, so I get the Sparkles, but you can make the same statement more subtly with good glass and add a POW where it counts. A disco ball is sparkly, but I wouldn't call it art. Hope this helps!

As an engineer I couldn't resist this one, here is the math for estimating amounts:
Divide the area of the dress you want to bead up into squares and measure the sides of the square in millimeters (most beads are listed in millimeters: if your supplier uses inches then measure in inches). Multiply the two sides of the square together to get area. Make pretend the beads are square and multiple the bead diameter by itself to get an estimate of the area each bead takes up. Now divide the costume area by the bead area and you now have the number of crystals that will fill in the area if you use a checkerboard pattern (straight rows and collums). This method will not work if you use closest cubic packing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-packing_of_s... since that will use more crystals. Hope this helps. Don't forget to add some extra to replace the ones that roll under the bed never to be found again.

I love people like you, Silver Blades! Thank you! This may be the antidote that we who need a crystal intervention need.

Or not…:)

Other moms at our rink often joke that I need a 12 step program. But, then again, they always come back and want to borrow my color chart and want to know when I'm going to do an order so we can combine shipping. Coach loves sparkle so she definitely encourages me not to seek help and sends moms to me either to have dresses done or to learn how to do the dresses themselves. I believe my daughter's freeskate dress has over 800 crystals on it – and I glued every one!

K.D. – I've discovered that most commercially available dresses mostly have size 16ss crystals. It's a good place to start. I always have to do the cost/benefit analysis of using larger stones and the smaller ones (like 8ss and 10ss) don't catch the light as well. Hope this helps.

When we ordered my daughter’s first program dress, it has mabye 50 crystals total. Back then the dresses were not as fancy, and we thought that fifty was plenty.

A few years later, I started making her costumes.

Now, 11 years later, she is Senior Ladies-level. The last dress I made had over 4 thousand crystals and sequins going around the dress and onto the skirt in a candy-cane stripe pattern. I think it comes from the fact that the dresses we see on other skaters are crystal heavy and we want our skaters to match up with everyone else.

Our skating club has a membership to a wholesale supplier that I order from in bulk. I usually order 20 gross at a time in basic colors (such as crystal or AB) and save what is left over for the next project. Whenever possible, I substitute the preciousa brand for swarovski because they are cheaper and the quality is equal.

When we ordered my daughter's first program dress, it has mabye 50 crystals total. Back then the dresses were not as fancy, and we thought that fifty was plenty.

A few years later, I started making her costumes.

Now, 11 years later, she is Senior Ladies-level. The last dress I made had over 4 thousand crystals and sequins going around the dress and onto the skirt in a candy-cane stripe pattern. I think it comes from the fact that the dresses we see on other skaters are crystal heavy and we want our skaters to match up with everyone else.

Our skating club has a membership to a wholesale supplier that I order from in bulk. I usually order 20 gross at a time in basic colors (such as crystal or AB) and save what is left over for the next project. Whenever possible, I substitute the preciousa brand for swarovski because they are cheaper and the quality is equal.

OMG! 4,000 crystals! You *WIN*! You can be in charge of the Crystal Support Group!

Seriously, I would love to know more about your club as a member of a wholesale crystal supplier. I’ve never heard of that and I think that others would love to know more, too.

OMG! 4,000 crystals! You *WIN*! You can be in charge of the Crystal Support Group!

Seriously, I would love to know more about your club as a member of a wholesale crystal supplier. I've never heard of that and I think that others would love to know more, too.

I have put a few crystals on a few dresses, not a lot, but I can see how it would get addicting. As I do not sew I just love the hot fix crystals! I have also glued sequin trim on a few show costumes as well. I think those of you who have put load of crystals on some dresses should send Ice Mom some pics of the dresses & she could put them on here. I’d be interested in seeing them! :~)

I have put a few crystals on a few dresses, not a lot, but I can see how it would get addicting. As I do not sew I just love the hot fix crystals! I have also glued sequin trim on a few show costumes as well. I think those of you who have put load of crystals on some dresses should send Ice Mom some pics of the dresses & she could put them on here. I'd be interested in seeing them! :~)

Confession time – I have regularly used over 15 gross of stones on 1 dress. The latest had about 3 dozen of the large specialty shaped stones, 1 gross of medium-sized sew-on stones, and the rest were a mix of 20ss and 30ss. I prefer using the Czech Preciosa for the glue on stones (except for certain colors that are only available as Swarovski) but I like the Swarovski for the large special-shaped stones much better. I get my stones from the rhinestoneguy (if you can ever go to his store in person you should do it – his motorcycle is covered in 20ss fire opal flames. Stunning!). He offers bulk pricing (for 10 gross 20ss or 2 gross 30ss), so I tend to order stones in amounts of 2 or 10 gross, unless I know I only need a small amount. As for figuring how much to get… I usually guess based on experience. One think to do is maybe use sequins of a similar size on a practice costume. The sequins will be cheap, you can practice the design and can modify before using the pricey stuff and doing it for real, and you will get a better estimate of how much you need to get if you worry about over-ordering.

As for the extra stones – I usually keep them for other projects. I really love the look of many different colors of stones on lace, so I tend to use the leftovers on that. I recently made a dress from leftover fabric and leftover stones. (My mom calls it the “kitchen sink dress” because I threw everything on it except the kitchen sink!). By the time I was done there were over 10 different types of stones used on the dress, and I only had to buy about 2 gross to complete the project. It was my first competition dress that I made and I love it because all of the professional seamstresses complement it at the competitions!

Confession time – I have regularly used over 15 gross of stones on 1 dress. The latest had about 3 dozen of the large specialty shaped stones, 1 gross of medium-sized sew-on stones, and the rest were a mix of 20ss and 30ss. I prefer using the Czech Preciosa for the glue on stones (except for certain colors that are only available as Swarovski) but I like the Swarovski for the large special-shaped stones much better. I get my stones from the rhinestoneguy (if you can ever go to his store in person you should do it – his motorcycle is covered in 20ss fire opal flames. Stunning!). He offers bulk pricing (for 10 gross 20ss or 2 gross 30ss), so I tend to order stones in amounts of 2 or 10 gross, unless I know I only need a small amount. As for figuring how much to get… I usually guess based on experience. One think to do is maybe use sequins of a similar size on a practice costume. The sequins will be cheap, you can practice the design and can modify before using the pricey stuff and doing it for real, and you will get a better estimate of how much you need to get if you worry about over-ordering.

As for the extra stones – I usually keep them for other projects. I really love the look of many different colors of stones on lace, so I tend to use the leftovers on that. I recently made a dress from leftover fabric and leftover stones. (My mom calls it the “kitchen sink dress” because I threw everything on it except the kitchen sink!). By the time I was done there were over 10 different types of stones used on the dress, and I only had to buy about 2 gross to complete the project. It was my first competition dress that I made and I love it because all of the professional seamstresses complement it at the competitions!

You are right. I’ll work up a gallery page so we can blind one another with our bling! Great suggestion SuperSkater – thanks!

You are right. I'll work up a gallery page so we can blind one another with our bling! Great suggestion SuperSkater – thanks!

[...] last week’s sewing post, I mentioned that I need some sort of 12-step program to help me with my crystalling [...]

Hi there, this is the first time I have to glue crystals for my daughter’s first competition. Her dress is blue like turquoise and I am wondering what color could u combine to make it sparkle nicely?.
Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

I will be putting on only 1800 (I only said “only” because you did 4,000!). How long will it take (hotfix)?