Wavy Weaving

While I was waiting for the glass to fuse in the kiln on Friday, I started a new beadwoven bracelet. I was too antsy about the glass to really get much done, but I loved the pattern, though I felt it needed to be wider. I took it home for the weekend, took it apart, and reworked it:

I love the undulating waves in this bracelet!

The colors were dictated by my supply of 3mm firepolish, which this pattern eats up! I have lots of Tila colors to choose from, but not many 3mm firepolishes in large enough quantity - but I like these autumnal olives and purples!

As I headed home on Saturday, I decided to just wait until it was finished to find an appropriate clasp - I'm 50-50 on planning clasps. Sometimes, I build a whole bracelet around a clasp, and other times I just wait 'til I'm done stitching, and see what's in my stash. And sometimes I get extremely lucky when I head to that stash! Like here, and here, and here, just to name a few!

You weavers know how these patterns direct you to "stitch until you reach desired length?" Well - sometimes, this is problematic for me. In this particular pattern, the waves on either end of the finished length have to be coming from opposite directions (see below):

 waves approach from opposite directions, meeting in the middle

If they don't, it is impossible to get the clasp to meet, because the waves are curling away from each other:

 waves approach from the same direction, and do not meet

My problem? Each of these segments is an inch long, and my "desired length" was exactly one segment shorter than you see above - but this meant the waves didn't meet when I brought the ends together, so I either had to stitch one MORE segment, or REMOVE one. If I remove one, the bracelet is way too short.

Here is another bracelet where the individual segments were so large that they significantly impacted the finished length of the bracelet. I ended up stitching the bracelet shorter than I wanted it, then used a large button closure and a corresponding large loop, which combined to give me the extra length I needed.

Anyway, as it is, this wavy bracelet is entirely too long, and we all know that adding a clasp is only going to add length. So, when I sit down to work on this one again, I'll be removing 2 of the wave segments, and then figuring out a way to embellish the ends so that I can get a good-fitting bracelet.

But that's a project for another day: Today, I'll be digging out my jewelry templates and cutting my newly fused and engraved dichroic glass into different shapes for pendants; grinding them for smoothness and framing, and hopefully doing a firepolish run in the kiln tomorrow.