My sister asked me to make a "Dragonfly Bangle" and "Corundum Earrings" set for her friend's birthday. She wanted them in purple with metallic chocolate seed beads. I came up with two different colorways and I will let her choose which set she likes best.
The "Dragonfly Bangles" is from Deb Roberti and you can get the free pattern HERE. Kelly Dale has a YouTube tutorial for the earrings HERE. You can also buy the pattern in her Etsy shop HERE.
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- SuperDuo beads "Dark Bronze"
- MiniDuo beads "Jet Bronze"
- Fire Polished beads "Halo Ethereal Regal"
- IOS® par Puca beads "Dark Bronze"
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- SuperDuo beads "Dark Bronze"
- SuperDuo beads "Halo Regal"
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- SuperDuo beads "Dark Bronze"
- MiniDuo beads "Jet Bronze"
- 4mm druks "Lilac Vega Luster"
- IOS® par Puca beads "Dark Bronze"
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Metallic Chocolate" (461)
- SuperDuo beads "Dark Bronze"
- SuperDuo beads "Chalk Vega"
- 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- Half Tila beads "Matte Metallic Patina" (HT-2008)
Today's bracelet is another example made with only one Half Tila color. You can find a good selection of Half Tila beads at Red Panda and Aura Crystals.
Read my original post HERE for links to a free pattern and YouTube video tutorials for making this design.
PINTEREST PROBLEM
Has anyone else noticed that Pinterest is being erratic today? You can't scroll past the first few rows of pins. When you try to scroll down further, the page refreshes and bounces you back up as soon as you release your mouse wheel or the scroll bar. It's doing this in Firefox and Google Chrome so it must be a Pinterest problem.
The problem is worse than I thought. After pinning the photos from today's post, I went to my board to make sure that I didn't miss any. I discovered that all of the pins from my blog for the past week or so are gone except for yesterday's. The next pins on the board are from the end of February. It's even worse on one of my private boards. Everything is gone between a couple days ago and last November.
UPDATE: I contacted Pinterest about the problems and they said that many people have reported the same thing today and they're working on fixing it.
- 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Pewter" (4222)
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Pewter" (4222)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Duracoat Pewter" (4222)
- Half Tila beads "Matte Metallic Silver Grey" (HT-2002)
I had in my mind that making this bracelet in all one color would be boring but I was wrong. I like this plain colorway just as much as the two color ones. I made this one with pewter seed beads but I think it would also be nice with dark bronze seed beads.
Read my original post HERE for links to a free pattern and YouTube video tutorials for making this design.
- 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- Half Tila beads "Metallic Matte Dark Bronze" (HT-2006)
- Half Tila beads "Matte Gunmetal" (HT-2001)
I didn't post anything yesterday because I had run out of things to post due to not being able take photos for several days. I spent the past two days taking almost 200 beadwork photos, picking out the best ones, editing them then typing nine blog articles. I also had the grocery shopping, cooking and other chores to do in between.
I decided to try a few more design variations with this narrow bracelet and this time I used a basket weave pattern. Because the bracelet is so narrow, the pattern isn't all that obvious and you would see it more with a wider bracelet. The odd thing that I discovered about the basket weave is that you always end up with the outside rows being different colors. I think it would look better with the outer rows being the same color but it's just not possible. I do love this colorway though.
Read my original post HERE for links to a free pattern and YouTube video tutorials for making this design.
I made some samples to show you some of the color patterns that you can create on these bracelets by changing the arrangement of the beads. I'm also posting information about the order in which order each color is added when making these variations. I refer to the colors as "A" and "B" in the formulas below. I'm not going to explain how to do the Herringbone stitch, I'm only describing the order that you need to pick up each color for the first few rows of the stitch to achieve the patterns below. When doing the Herringbone stitch the "rows" go vertically and they correspond to the width of the bracelet rather than the length. After adding a row, you flip the work then add the next row and so on.
BORDER
For this formula, color A is the inside color and B is the border color:
Row 1: A + B
Row 2: A + B
Row 3: A + B
Row 4: A + B
Repeat this sequence for the length of the bracelet. If you're making a wider bracelet, pick up all A beads in each row except for the last bead picked up which should be a B bead. For example, for a bracelet that is four Half Tila beads wide, you would pick up A + A + A + B.
BASKET WEAVE
Row 1: A + A
Row 2: B + B
Row 3: A + A
Row 4: B + B
Repeat this sequence for the length of the bracelet. For a wider bracelet, simply use more of the same color beads in each row. Note that you will always end up with color A along one edge and color B along the other.
NARROW STRIPES
Row 1: A + A
Row 2: A + A
Row 3: B + B
Row 4: B + B
Repeat this sequence for the length of the bracelet. This is the narrowest stripe possible. If you'd like to use more than two colors then rows 5 and 6 would be your third "C" color.
WIDE STRIPES
This formula will give you stripes that are twice as wide as the narrow stripes. If you'd like them even wider make five or six rows in your "A" color then make the same number of rows in your "B" color. Of course you can also use more than two colors if you like.
Row 1: A + A
Row 2: A + A
Row 3: A + A
Row 4: A + A
Row 5: B + B
Row 6: B + B
Row 7: B + B
Row 8: B + B
Repeat this sequence for the length of the bracelet. For a three-color bracelet, rows 9-12 would be your "C" color.
ALTERNATING WIDE AND NARROW STRIPES
For this pattern, I alternated narrow and wide stripes using the formulas above.
I've created a PDF file with these formulas that you can print out.
Click HERE to download the PDF.
- 15/0 seed beads Toho "Nickel Plated" (711)
- 11/0 seed beads Toho "Nickel Plated" (711)
- 8/0 seed beads Toho "Nickel Plated" (711)
- Half Tila beads "Nickel Plated" (HT-190)
- Half Tila beads "Opaque Black" (HT-401)
This neutral colorway should go with a lot of different outfits. Read my original post HERE for links to a free pattern and YouTube video tutorials for making this design.
The other day I mentioned HERE that I'd gotten some more Half Tilas in the mail and I said that the dye lots on some of the colors looked different than my older beads. It turns out that one color isn't actually any different. Once those beads have been used, they change to look just like the beads from my old stash. That's because the surface color rubs off while you're working with the beads and more of the base color shows through. The color is "Matte Metallic Copper" (HT-2005) and the difference is very obvious as you can see in the photo below. When they're new and unused, they look like the pile of beads on the left. Once they've been handled, they instantly change to look like the beads in the pile on the right. I've already used a few beads from the new batch and they've been added to my old batch because they now look just like those beads. I actually like the darker bronze copper better than the bright reddish copper color of the new beads.
Here is the bracelet that I made with the old batch of that color:
- 15/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- 11/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- 8/0 seed beads Miyuki "Dark Bronze" (457)
- Half Tila beads "Metallic Dark Bronze" (HT-457)
- Half Tila beads "Galvanized Grey Luster" (HT-1865)
I think this color combination is quite pretty. It almost looks like two metallic colors but the center Half Tilas are a luster grey. Although I do like these bracelets with shiny Half Tila beads, the matte ones are my favorite to work with. These glossy ones are kind of slippery and I really had to hold them firmly to keep my stitching tight.
Read my original post HERE for links to a free pattern and YouTube video tutorials for making this design.
