Russian Spiral Weave

When I went to the Bead Expo in Fredericksburg a couple weeks back, one of the vendors had several samples of a beautifully woven necklace.  I wanted the pattern, but wasn't willing to buy enough beads to be offered a copy, so I settled for the name of it - Russian Spiral.  As soon as a got home, I started googling it.  I started playing with some of the beads that I bought at the expo (the short glittery sample below) and quickly realized that to make a long rope, I was going to need a LOT more beads than I had purchased.  It was taking me about 20 of the larger beads (4mm) per inch.

(click for detail)

I ordered 800 of the blue bicones off ebay, and started working on the first full necklace.  Two bad things happened - first, I realized I only received half the order (I emailed the vendor, the other 400 are on their way), and second, I realized that my tension was terrible.  for the weave to be attractive, it needs to be tight.  The loop I completed with the blue beads is long enough to slip over my head, but sloppy enough that I think I will just cut it apart and start over when the other beads arrive.

The red necklace is my third attempt.   The red beads are from a bag of E beads that I have had forever, and that I had mostly used as spacers.  The bronze iris beads are ones that I bought at the Bead Expo.  I never thought I would run out of those red beads, but I ended up cutting apart another project and tapering off with smaller, duller beads just to scrounge enough to finish the necklace.  Still, I really like it.  The red and brown together makes me think of chocolate covered cherries.  I was able to keep my work tighter, but it was still the most difficult part of doing the weave.  Does anyone have any good suggestions for maintaining a good thread tension?