Black and White Herringbone

This is a very graphic black and white herringbone bracelet - it uses 4mm cubes and 6/0 rounds:

 Herringbone detail

My super-secret button stash came through, again:

Bronze Peyote with Stripe

Peyote remains one of my favorite stitches. This is a bracelet I created using bronze 8/0s, with a thin, off-center stripe of matte cobalt blue 8/0s:

I've been getting very lucky lately with finding matching buttons in my super-secret button stash, and I scored again for this bracelet:

I added a small picot border around the bracelet with 15/0s.

I love using buttons for bracelet closures, because there's such a fun choice of buttons right now, and they are so easy and quick to attach (as opposed to stitching a clasp from scrap!) Easy to operate, too!

What kind of closures do you prefer on your bracelets?

Wednesday Worktable

I feel like I have been working on this Cellini Spiral project forever - I really want to be done, now.

Sometimes I feel like my pieces are the beading equivalent of tsunamis; they start of small and simple, and then, through no fault of my own, they build up steam and intensity and turn into these weeks-long statement pieces. I always love the results, but I still can't quite figure out why this keeps happening!

This Celllini project started as a simple Cellini spiral tube necklace. But it was too stiff to bend, so I had to turn it into something else. This was the beginning of the tsunami.

Then I decided to add a beautiful lampwork focal bead to the mix, and the wave started to build. How to connect the Cellini tubes to the focal? How to cap the ends of the Cellini tubes? How to finish the back of the necklace?

And, as with all my "project" pieces, I solve one problem, and believe I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and am nearly done! That's how I felt last week, when I started to add the skinny spirals to the back of the necklace. I'm almost done, right?

Or not. Because as I was stitching the first skinny spiral, I started thinking about the clasp. What to use as a clasp? No ordinary clasp would do! Plus, I didn't really have anything available that was a good match, metal-wise.

So, I guess I have to stitch a clasp. Feel that tsunami building, again? I knew I could stitch a toggle and bar, using the same seed beads as in the spirals, and obviously it would match. But I developed a bad case of "been there, done that" last Friday, so I decided I needed to do something new. And the wave is getting bigger! Where is the light at the end of my tunnel, now? See how this is through absolutely no fault of my own? The project is "speaking to me." What? You can't hear it? Am I the only one hearing voices coming from the beads....?!?

I decided to see if I could bead around a plain old ordinary button - I started stitching (freeform circular peyote) on Friday, stitched all day Saturday, and only managed to get the top of the button done. Then I took a break Sunday and Monday, and worked on something different. I started in on the button again yesterday, and haven't quite gotten the sides done. (In my defense, I had some repairs and some ordering to do yesterday, too).

So today I hope to finish the button - I am decreasing hard, trying to cinch up the beads and get a good tight cover on this button!

This is the top of the button - it is a little off center, and very loose because I haven't managed to stitch over the sides fully, yet.

Here is the side view:

Still a couple of rows away from getting over the side and around to the back of the button.

And then there is the next issue - do I make a simple seed bead loop to go over this button, or something else? Simple just doesn't seem to be in my vocabulary anymore! LOL!

The next best thing to being there...

My friend, Sonya, went to Mood, the fabric store featured in almost every episode of Project Runway, and brought me back this beautiful Mood wood button - it is huge (it's 1.5 inches in diameter!)

Sonya got to peruse all the fabulous offerings at Mood - the fabrics, the trims, the many aisles of row-to-ceiling buttons....swoon! She even got to meet Swatch, the store's Boston Terrier mascot.

Even Swatch is worn out by the dazzling button offerings!

I loved hearing about Sonya's trip to Mood - and I love my Mood button, which unfortunately is probably the closest I'll ever get to Mood! I'm hoarding my Mood button now - I sort of want to make something with it, but my bead hoarding instincts are telling me to SAVE IT. You know those little voices, don't you? You hear them, too - I knew it wasn't just me.

Looking forward to Sonya's post about her Mood trip!