Sunday, March 9, 2014

Beadwork Challenge: Aisling Bracelet update


I successfully completed a bracelet last night and it came out quite pretty. I'm just not sure if I like it well enough to keep. I might wear it a couple of times before taking it apart and using the beads for something else. It does use a LOT of seed beads and fire polished beads. The look of the pattern is a little too cluttered for me with all the seed beads piled up on each other. I prefer a more distinct design and this one looks a bit too much like a jumble of seed beads because of the dimensional effect.

Using FireLine and a size 12 needle made a world of difference. I had no trouble at all getting through any of the beads. Here are the beads that I used:


  • 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (11-457D)
  • 4mm fire polished beads "Transparent Gold Topaz Luster"
  • 3mm fire polished beads "Bronze Olivine"
If you buy the pattern, here are the corrections and also some tips:

1. When you do steps 9 and 19, I recommend weaving back around the four center fire polished beads a second time to make sure they're pulled nice and snug.

2. Step 15 is the one with the mistake. Here is what needs to be changed:




3. In step 17, Nancy forgot to mention that she's talking about the "red path" in the diagram.

4. Just my opinion, but I found it a little odd to use 7 seed beads for the clasp loops instead of an even number. I used eight on mine so that the jump rings have four beads on either of them.

5. I also recommend weaving all the way around the netting on the edge a second time to tighten it up a bit.




If anyone tries this pattern, I'd love to see a photo of how yours turns out. I was disappointed that it didn't look all that great with most of the bead combinations that I tried. Maybe I just didn't try the right ones so I'm open to suggestions.
 

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