Bracelet of the Day: Coin Bands - Capri Blue

COIN BANDS

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Bronze" (TR-11-221/c)
• CzechMates "Capri Blue Gold Marbled"

This was going to be a birthday present for a friend but I wasn't wild about it once it was finished. Instead I came up with a tweak for another pattern by Deborah Roberti which I will post as my next Bracelet of the Day. I've been waiting to post these until after her birthday, which was yesterday. I'm not sure why this one didn't appeal to me but I think it might be the color of the seed beads against the blue CzechMates beads. I did use bronze seed beads for the final bracelet but not quite the same color.

This is the Coin Bands pattern without any changes except for the way that I attached the clasp. You can buy Deb's pattern HERE.

 

Bracelet of the Day: Canterbury - Stone Amethyst

CANTERBURY BRACELET

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (15-457D)
• 3mm fire polished beads "Stone Amethyst Luster"
• 4mm fire polished beads "Stone Amethyst Luster"
• 3mm fire polished beads "Montana Blue Luster"

I made this one yesterday and I finally made a Canterbury bracelet with all of the rows of embellishment that the pattern calls for. However, I scaled down the size by using smaller beads. The result is a very delicate, soft bracelet that's not too wide. Had I used the full size beads, it would have been a bit wider than I'd like and so many large fire polished beads would have been a little too overwhelming, I think. As it is, there are a lot of beads which make it look a little busy but at least the color is subtle enough that it works pretty well. I didn't even bother adding any clasp loops. I just inserted the jump rings into the ends of the bracelet and attached a toggle. I like using a toggle clasp on wider bracelets because they make them fit flatter against my arm. In the end though, this came out a little too long to stay up on my arm as a cuff so that's not an issue. I'm not sure if it would fit at all if I were to make it one motif shorter though so I'll leave it as it is. Of course I can always change my mind later and re-make it shorter.

I did have to tweak with the pattern slightly because of the smaller seed beads. In step 14, I had to add eight seed beads instead of seven. When I made my sample of this version I had used 5 seed beads in step 25 but for some reason four worked fine in my final version. I guess it makes a difference how tight your stitching is.

This pattern is by Nancy Peterson and you can buy it HERE. 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.

 

Bracelet of the Day: Canterbury - Stone Blue

CANTERBURY BRACELET

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Antique Silver-Nickel" (11-464A)
• 6mm fire polished beads "Stone Blue Luster"
• 4mm fire polished beads "Lumi Coated Blue"

I made this bracelet ages ago but it needed to be re-made because it was too tight and I did a crummy job attaching the clasp when I originally made it. Here's how it looked before remaking it:

I think you can see how tight the centers of the motifs are, if you click to view the full size photo, and the ugly clasp loops are obvious. The funny thing is that despite using exactly the same beads, and the same size clasp but in a brighter silver, this time it came out slightly too loose. The reason it was so small before is because I'd pulled the stitching much too tight. I've very pleased with the way it came out this time and I think it's my best Canterbury bracelet to date. The netting is nice and smooth and isn't curling or flopping around like it's prone to do with this pattern.

This was always my favorite color combination of this bracelet and I'm very glad that it turned out so well. I also remade the brown one the other day that I posted about on April 5th. That one had turned out well the first time I made it except that it was much too big on me. This time I used a smaller clasp. Oddly enough, the brown one is slightly snug on me this time even though it has exactly the same number of motifs as before and has the same number of beads and the same clasp as the blue one. Although it's not obvious, I must have pulled my stitching a little tighter on the brown one or maybe the bronze seed beads are slightly smaller than the silver ones. I could tell a difference in the seed beads while working with them. The silver ones seemed fatter and rounder and they fit around the other beads a little differently than the bronze seed beads did with the brown one. 

Here are photos of the new brown Canterbury:

In case you haven't noticed, I make my clasp loops different than Nancy Peterson's pattern suggests. I also add them at a different stage of the process, or at least I did that when remaking these two this time. I added the clasps after adding the netting on both sides and after I'd reinforced it once. After the clasps were added, I reinforced the netting two more times. That really makes a difference in how neat it turns out. Using FireLine is also very important with this pattern and Nancy does call for it. You can buy the pattern HERE. 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.

Playing with my beads...Circular Brick Stitch

Just a quick post to show you the new stitch I learned today called Circular Brick Stitch. I learned by watching THIS video by Beadaholique. My sample is a little wonky because my pearl wasn't perfectly round. It's not bad though for a first attempt.

I'm not sure yet what I'll do with the technique but I'm sure it will be handy to know at some point. This is the stitch that Miguel Ases uses for most of his earring designs. If you're not familiar with his work, just Google his name and you'll see lots of examples.
 

Free Beading Tutorial: Flora Earrings

FLORA EARRINGS

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (15-457D)
• 3mm druks "Champagne" (Nirvana Beads)

Since I wasn't able to track down a pattern online for the earrings that I blogged about HERE, I figured out how to make them myself and then came up with this round variation.

Click HERE to download the free tutorial

If you like this pattern, please consider making a voluntary donation through PayPal using the DONATE button on the right.

NOTE: I don't mind if you sell the projects that you make with our patterns, but please mention that you got the pattern from Linda's Crafty Inspirations. Please contact me for information about teaching this or any of our patterns in a class.
 
Here is another pair of the earrings that I made for a Christmas present last year:
 

The pattern also works perfectly with 11/0 seed beads and 4mm fire polished beads but I'm not crazy about that size for earrings. If you make them that size, I suggest using Nymo D thread. Nymo B and FireLine are too thin to give the earrings enough stability. I also added one extra 11/0 seed bead for the earring wire because those beads are too large to go through the hole in the wire. It works better with three seed beads on each side of the wire. Here's a sample that I made in that size:

• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Light Bronze" (11-457L)
• 4mm fire polished beads "Stone Pink Luster"

Bracelet of the Day: Diamond Chain with Montees

DIAMOND CHAIN WITH MONTEES

• 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (15-457)
• 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (11-457)
• 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Bronze" (8-457)
• 3.9mm "Blue" Montees
• 4mm bicones "Jet #C04" (Beads One)

I had a heck of a time getting decent photo of this bracelet because black beads are very difficult to photograph. Hopefully you can tell how pretty it is. As I mentioned in my other post, I didn't follow any particular pattern. This is based on the "Diamond Chain Bracelet" with an extra little motif in between the bicone diamonds (pattern is no longer available). The in-between motifs are smaller diamonds made of four 11/0 seed beads and I stitched the montees on top of them at the end. I embellished those motifs with little 15/0 picots. I added an 8/0 seed bead at each end of the bracelet so that I could attach my clasp with jump rings.

Bracelet of the Day: Duo Bobble Band - Jet & Grey

DUO BOBBLE BAND (LIZBETH BAND)

• 11/0 seed beads Toho "Nickel Plated" (711)
• SuperDuo beads "Jet Hematite"
• 3mm pearls "Silver" (Chinese)

This color scheme came about by accident. I was trying something out yesterday and these bead colors matched something I was using. That idea didn't work out but I realized that they'd be perfect for this pattern. There is no published pattern for this. My friend, Teejay, adapted it for SuperDuo beads from Deborah Roberti's "Bobble Bangles" pattern.

UPDATE 1/24/18: A free pattern is now available and the new name for this pattern is "Lizbeth Band". Visit THIS post to download the free pattern.