Playing with my beads..Candyberry Bracelet

I've blogged many times about this pattern which is really called "Canterbury Bracelet". It's one of my all-time favorite bracelet patterns. It's by Nancy Peterson and you can buy it HERE on Lulu. UPDATE 3/9/2021: Nancy is no longer selling her beading patterns but she has graciously allowed me to post her "Canterbury Bracelet" pattern on my blog as a free download. To download a copy, please visit THIS post. I'm calling these samples "Candyberry" because they're "Canterbury" made with 8mm 2-hole Candy beads and the druks that I used have sort of fruity names.

Below are a couple of examples of the original "Canterbury Bracelet" that I blogged about before HERE. I leave off the last row of embellishment whenever I make mine so don't be surprised when you see that Nancy's pattern photos look a little different. There is no color information for the brown bracelet in that post because I didn't have any color names for the brown beads. The beads weren't labeled when I bought them in a local bead shop.

This pattern actually works very nicely with the Candy beads because they're flat on the back. For that reason, the netting stays put better without a lot of extra reinforcing. Because the Candy beads have two holes in them the shape of the bracelet changed a little. If you look closely at the two bracelets above, the netting scallops pretty much meet just above each of the larger fire polished beads with very little space between them. When I used Candy beads, I had to add extra seed beads to fill the gap between the two holes which added a space between the scallops. Where the pattern says to add two seed beads, I had to use four with Candy beads to bridge that gap.

I had to make one other tweak when I used Toho seed beads. I thought at first that I'd have to change the number of beads in the netting but that wasn't the case. Where I had to make a change was in the interior part of the bracelet between the Candy beads. In the photo above, the top sample was made with Toho beads ("Antique Bronze" #223) and the bottom one has Miyuki beads. Look between the two 4mm druks and you'll see that with Toho, there are only two seed beads and with Miyuki, there are three. The change comes at the very beginning of the tutorial. When it says to pick up seven seed beads in Steps 2 and 3, you only pick up six with Toho beads. Then, in Steps 4 and 5, you will only add two seed beads in those steps and go through just the center two beads of the six on the sides of the Candy beads. If you don't reduce the number of beads in that spot, the netting beads along the outer edge will stick out above and below the Candy beads leaving unsightly gaps.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8mm 2-hole Candy beads "White Terracotta Violet"
• 4mm druks "Pacifica Fig"

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
• 8mm 2-hole Candy beads "Chalk Lumi Green"
• 4mm druks "Pacifica Poppy Seed"

The last sample below doesn't have Candy beads. I just wanted to try out these Pacifica Elderberry druks and I don't have any Candy beads that go well with that color. They do go very well with these Alexandrite Moon Dust fire polished beads though.

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Galvanized Pewter" (4222)
• 6mm fire polished beads "Milky Alexandrite Moon Dust"
• 4mm druks "Pacifica Elderberry"

You can buy these Pacifica druks at Queen City Bead on Etsy and also at Red Panda.