Bracelet of the Day: Crystal Elegance

CRYSTAL ELEGANCE BRACELET

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki “Dark Bronze” (11-457D)
• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki “Dark Bronze” (15-457D)
• 3x5mm hematite tube beads “Golden”
• 4mm bicones “Rose Topaz AB” (from Beadoholique)
• 4mm bicones “Golden Shadow - #C25AB” (from Beads One)
  

I just made today's bracelet a week or two ago. The Crystal Elegance pattern is by Joanie Jenniges. I didn't know until after buying the pattern that it called for a very unusual kind of beads called "3x5mm hematite tubes". I had to track down a source for those beads before I could try the pattern. Nobody had them in any of the local bead shops so I had to buy them online. Most sites only have them in the normal gray hematite color but I found some gold colored ones in a Chinese eBay store. The good news is that they were only $3.00 per strand with free shipping even though they were sent all the way from China. I'm happy to say that the quality is very good. I also ordered some of the hematite colored tubes from this Etsy shop. Those were a bargain too, even with shipping. I got six strands for $3.50 plus $2.99 for shipping. I do prefer the gold color though since it blends better with the other beads in my bracelet than the dark gray.

Other than the matching earring pattern that Joanie sells for the bracelet that I made, I haven't seen any other patterns calling for hematite tubes but I'm keeping a lookout for some. Otherwise, I'll just make this bracelet pattern with them. By the way, it takes most of a strand of tube beads to make one of these bracelets. Because I wear such a small size bracelet (6-inch), I had quite a few left over from the strand but a 7 1/2-inch bracelet would use nearly a whole strand. 

It's an interesting pattern to weave because you first make a base out of the hematite tubes and then cover the base with the bicones and seed beads. You don't really see the tube beads while wearing the bracelet but they do make it very thick. I think they might have been more visible had I used the gray colored tubes in this bracelet. I would probably use that color if I was going to use silver or black seed beads.

Earrings of the Day: Layered Tila Earrings

LAYERED TILA EARRINGS

• 3mm fire polished beads “Transparent Gold Topaz Luster”
• 4mm fire polished beads “Lumi Coated Taupe”
• 15/0 Miyuki Dark Bronze seed beads (15-457D)
• 11/0 Miyuki Dark Bronze seed beads (11-457D)
• Tila beads “Light Caramel Pearl” (#593)
• 2 earring wires
  

The earrings I'm wearing today were adapted from the "Layered Tila Bracelet" pattern on Yvonne King's "MyAmari" beading blog. I just made one motif turned on the diagonal for my earring and added a loop at the top to attach the earring wire. 

UPDATE 6/6/19: All of the previous links to this pattern are dead. You can get the free "Layered Tila Bracelet" pattern HERE on Bead-Patterns.com.