At first I only wanted to loom a slim bracelet. I had some bead soup mixed from gold lined crystal, transparent topaz, and transparent topaz AB cube beads and I had ordered some gold lined crystal and transparent topaz seed beads for a piece in a series not long ago of which I still had some leftovers.
I really like the look of alternating cube and seed beads in a row - as I did in the O beads bracelet and pendant - which reminds me of tweed. Great structure.
When I had finished looming, however, I knew this needed something more, but what? I went through my drawers and found some golden Kumihimo cord that seemed just perfect and that I had used in looming before.
I sewed one strand on along the middle of the bracelet. Not only did it give the piece even more structure, but the red thread also added some contrast.
The sides did look a little naked now, though, so I added two more cords.
It's a bit of challenge what to do with the cord ends if you use ribbon crimps. Did I want crimps? What if I didn't use a clasp at all? What if I just braided those strands tightly, so they could be used for tying the bracelet onto the wrist in two different ways depending on the wrist size?
I was so close to leave it at that, but somehow it still needed something else. It needed some embellishment on the sides because it was slim, maybe a row of seed beads? Okay. Not on both sides, however. How about a seed beads fringe - I had already used up the cube bead mix except for one lonely cube - or maybe ... wait, I still had crystals that would be perfect in color! I knew I didn't have that many left, would there be enough? It turned out I did, in fact I had one too much.
Didn't that work out nicely? ;-)
And an extra bonus is that I could use the bracelet for the monthly JAC challenge which was about fiber art/mixed media AND that it gave me more ideas!
That's awesome, Cat!
ReplyDeleteI love it when the creativity is flowing with one idea leading to another resulting in such a beautiful finished piece.
Inquiring minds want to know what you are going to do with the one lone crystal that was left over!
Thank you!
DeleteIt would have been easier if I had used at least the cords on the sides on the loom, but I don't mind because the process was so interesting to me, too.
There is more cord in my stash drawer ...
I think it's probably going to end up as part of a little dangle on a bracelet or necklace, that's usually where those lonely leftovers come together in the end.