Saw it and made it

How much time do you spend perusing Pinterest?  I spend a little too much time being dazzled by the gorgeous beadwork I find.  I thought I'd better start making some pieces I'd seen on Pinterest to justify the time investment.

saw it and made it

One of my favorite wearable pieces is this bracelet by Lucila based on a pattern by Amparo Santos aka Quimeras on Etsy.  Every few days I would see it again and finally I decided to make my own.  I went to Lucila's blog and saw that the base component was designed by Amparo Santos whose patterns I have used before. 

source

Lucila found her amazing turquoise in Puerto Rico, but on my limited budget, I used turquoise dyed magnesite 8mm and 4mm beads.

my version

When I bought the magnesite, I found these matching quatrefoil beads and decided to use the as clasps.  Somehow they managed to perfectly fit.  Although Lucila finished her bracelet with coral beads, I wanted to keep a simpler color palette and stitched the 4mm's a bit more tightly together.

 

This piece is really a labor of love.  Each component with a bezeled 8mm bead surrounded by four 4mm is an individual piece.  There are 33 of these components stitched together!

Saw something on Pinterest and made it: Check.

Mérida

I have not actually fallen off of the face of the earth.  Just working and sleeping.  This week I finished yet another cuff.  I spotted this loom pattern at a blog from Spain - Ruxandrabolorios - and followed it to Rux's pattern site.
Since I don't loom, I used square stitch.  I used Toho Treasures for the cream and turquoise and Delicas for the copper and bronze.  Toho cylinder beads are just a little bigger than Delicas so I had a neat surface texture contrast that I decided to exploit. Because there are an odd number of beads in each row, I ended every row with a group of three beads instead of a group of two. Stitching back and forth means that there is a bit of unevenness in the way the beads sit.  I guess the best way to describe what I was after is a bit of a cobblestone texture.  I also used smoke Fireline which took away the yellowy quality to my cream beads and gave them a rather antique look.

Mérida

closes with two snaps

15/0 picot to match the DB-oo22L scrolls

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What is that on the cream beads?

At first I thought it was pollen.  We are covered in a fine yellow dust.  Seriously, it looks like South Georgia has been sprinkled with mica powder.  But no.  I made chili last night.  I toasted my dried chili peppers and ground them in a dedicated coffee mill.  I threw tomatoes in the blender with chipotles and adobo (I believe that is where I picked up the gunk in the photo).  I roasted my spices to bring out the flavors.  It was delicious, but the leftovers on the cuff - Yuck!  Gotta give these a scrub.