Tackle that stash - Kumihimo cord and beads bracelet

This bracelet really made me dig into my stash drawers!

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!

Whimpering and rambling

Seriously, I can't handle a new addiction. I feel torn between one technique and the other, I fall in love with one kind of design and want to make it in a thousand different colors, and then there are still those ideas from the list I made two years ago, one year ago, four months ago.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Ok, that helped. Not. You know I'm very unsocial at the moment. I'm happiest with two or three cats fighting for the best place on or near me, with a DVD playing, in my little fort whose walls are built from a loom, a bead mat, bead cups, wire, findings, beads, cabs, crochet hooks in different sizes and two remote controls. I don't need to talk and I am much too lazy - although I prefer to call it happily relaxed - to go outside and buy food. The selection at home is not that great at the moment, but as long as I still have milk, I don't really mind. Don't worry, I had spaghetti with veggie bolognese last night, I won't starve. And if there's danger of starving (if you know me, you'll find this as funny as I do), there's still nice Indian food waiting for me across the street. Very tempting.

I should take pictures and edit them before they take my Picnik away. I have played with other photo editing programs, downloads and online, but so far none of them has been IT for me.

Let's get to my latest addiction now however. I better write fast, the cats are in a strange mood today, and I have no idea when they'll get up and try to scream each other down again, crazy bunch.

A while ago I got myself some gold and silver Kumihimo cord. It lay around waiting forever, but suddenly its time had come.

Would you have thought that cord, tiny glass cubes and other beads might look good together? Well, I did, thanks to Erin the Evil Enabler. You might remember her.

Inspired by one of my favorite quotes I now want to say "I'm gonna need a bigger cube stash." As in Miyuki cube. You saw what I did with the bigger ones, I'll show you what I do with the tiny ones.

Those pearls (from Crysallis Gems, another enabler ;-)) look good enough to lick. I bet they would taste like chocolate. They sure look like it.

Unfortunately I found that I didn't have the right clasp for this cuff, so it's not listed yet.

Oh darn. I knew I wasn't fast enough. The "food patrol" is here demanding food for starving cats. To avoid more screaming and hissing, I'll obey.

I'll turn some music on for you and be right back.

I just hope 6 minutes will be enough.

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Amazing. I'm a real speed feeder.

On with the story. As I had so much fun with doing this cuff, I decided to go through my beads and see what else I had and I found tiger eye.

Then I had some more fun ;-)

Bead loomed cuff with tiger eye

THEN I ordered some more cord in different colors and now I need to decide what color cubes I want .... *sigh*

If you came that far, I can only admire you. Thanks!