Bracelet of the Day: Circe Bracelet

CIRCE BRACELET

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Metallic Bronze Antique Gold" (225)
• 8/0 seed beads Toho "Metallic Bronze Antique Gold" (225)
• SuperDuo beads "Opaque Light Blue Picasso"
• 4mm fire polished beads "Chartreuse Picasso"

This cute bracelet pattern is by Deb Roberti and you can buy her pattern HERE at Around the Beading Table. I've had the beads set aside to make this bracelet for so long that I'm not even sure if these bead colors are still available.

This was my first time making this pattern and I found that I needed to reinforce each motif two or three times or they tended to fold up. Some of the motifs on my bracelet do curl in a little but I doubt if it will be noticeable while I'm wearing it. My suggestion is that you use FireLine to make this pattern and also that you reinforce not only around the outer edge of each motif, but also go around the inner circle of each motif as well. Do the inside reinforcing first because I found that I couldn't always get my needle back around through those inner beads once I'd reinforced the outside due to the angle of the beads.

I needed to make eight motifs to fit my 6-inch wrist but the bracelet is a little loose. I couldn't think of any way to make it shorter and one less motif would be much too tight so I put on the smallest clasp that I had.

I bought these SuperDuos HERE at Red Panda but when I bought more of this color years later, I found out that the old and new dye lots are completely different. The new dye lot doesn't have the yellowish/amber highlights that you see on the beads in my bracelet. Although the color name isn't quite the same, I think THESE SuperDuos at Aura Crystals might be close to the color that I used.

I can't promise that this dye lot hasn't changed over time as well but Red Panda does still sell the Chartreuse Picasso fire polished beads HERE. Aura Crystals also has them HERE.

 PETITE FLEUR BRACELET SAMPLE

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (457L)
• SuperDuo beads "Turquoise Green with Light Picasso"
• O-Beads "Metallic Antique Gold"

I also wanted to show you this sample of the "Petite Fleur Bracelet" by Fusion Beads. It's a pattern that I have wanted to try for years but never got  around to it until the other day. While I think it's super cute, there is something that bugs me about it so I probably won't make this bracelet. The 15/0 seed beads that go along the outer edge of the bracelet are too crowded and sometimes they overlap each other. I used Miyuki seed beads so the problem would be even worse with Toho beads. In fact, I doubt if Toho beads would work at all with this pattern. Maybe I'm just too fussy though and with my aging eyesight I really can't see the messy beads unless I look really closely with glasses on. I probably would have put up with that issue if not for one more. It's kind of tricky getting the needled to go through the O-Beads in certain spots and I think I would get very tired of putting up with that long enough to make a whole bracelet. If I ever run out of other patterns to make, maybe I'll revisit this one because I think it's a really pretty way to use O-Beads and I've got a lot of them.

If you'd like to give this free pattern a go, you'll find it HERE at Fusion Beads. I got these SuperDuos HERE at Supply Emporium.