FLOWER CROSS BRACELET
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (11-461)
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Caramel Ceylon" (11-593)
- 4mm fire polished beads "Montana"
- 6mm fire polished beads "Montana"
This free pattern is by Nadine Denefleh and you can download it HERE (Unfortunately, this pattern is no longer available). HERE is a link to her blog article about this bracelet but the link from there to download the pattern doesn't seem to work for me. Luckily I'd saved that other link back when I found the pattern. Here is Nadine's photo of the bracelet:
With a few tweaks, I came up with my own take on the pattern. I used fire polished beads instead of pearls and bicones and I used 11/0 accent beads instead of 15/0 beads. I don't remember after all this time but I'm guessing that 15's were too small to show up very well in my color scheme. In any case, 11/0 seed beads fit just fine as you can see.
I love the design but unfortunately, the scale of the bracelet is a bit too big for my skinny arm. My plan is to make a smaller version using beads in the next sizes down from the original. Here's my tiny sample next to the full-size version:
I made that sample a very long time ago so I'm not sure now if I'll still use those colors. If I do, these are the beads that I will use:
- 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (15-457D)
- 15/0 seed beads Toho "Opaque Lavender" (TR-15-52/c)
- 3mm fire polished beads "Amethyst AB" or "Alexandrite Celsian"
- 4mm fire polished beads "Montana"
Hopefully I'll get around to making this bracelet soon. The trouble is that I've got so many other beading projects waiting to be made that it's hard to decide which one to make next. And naturally, for every project that finally gets made, I come up ten new things to make. Anyone else have that problem?
Maybe it would look less huge if you replaced the crystals with some flat beads? It's a beautiful pattern and doesn't look cluttered like most crystal bracelets. I can see it as a choker, too, and altered to make more free space between the square elements.
ReplyDeleteI think that the main problem was that I can only fit five motifs on a bracelet in my size so you hardly see the design when it's going around my wrist. I was still a beginning beader when I made that sample bracelet and I might be able to come up with something that works better now that I'm more experienced.
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ReplyDeleteI don't want to post my email address publicly but you can get it on my recipe website here: http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/email.html
DeleteThanks, Linda. I removed my email for the same reason. I do like the idea of using smaller beads but was also amazed at how much more I liked the dark colors, than the light! Have you tried this with pearls? (Will send a larger email when I can construct it!)
DeleteI made those samples so long ago that I don't remember what kinds of beads I tried. I like pearls but only in small doses as accents. They have a tendency to be what the eye focuses on instead of the other beads. The exception is that Russian pearl bracelet that I posted a while back. That one is ALL pearls and I love it.
Deleteany chance of getting this pattern? link doesnt work for me either. i really like this!
ReplyDeleteI can't post the pattern for download because it's not my pattern. I don't know why she took the pattern down and it was posted way back in 2010. It's possible that she's selling it online somewhere and that's why she removed the free version.
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