Seed beads

Seed beads are uniformly shaped, spheroidal or cylindrical beads ranging in size from under a millimeter to several millimeters. The most common bead size is 11/0 ("eleven-aught"), but sizes range from 22/0 (the smallest, I believe) to 6/0 or 5/0 (the largest). These are the beads most commonly used for loom and off-loom bead weaving.

Most of today's good quality seed beeds are made in Japan or the Czech Republic. Conventional wisdom is that Japanese seed beads are more regularly shaped and sized, but Czech seed beads have a wider range of sizes and colors.

Miyuki is a popular Japanese seed bead manufacturer.