Arabic motif bracelet

Apparently I didn't manage to write a blog in April.  I don't know what happened to the month.  It was here, I blinked, and it was gone.  Only the bills remain.

from a La Bella Joya pattern: Arabic Motifs

I loved the colors in Marcie's piece and had to make one myself.  Actually this is the second one I made.  The first I completed a few years ago, but I used thread that was a little too light weight and had problems with the aventurine beads breaking the thread.  For this piece I used 4 mm aquamarine and 6 lb. Fireline.  No problems.

I hoarded this aquamarine for years - it is much prettier in person

Gwen Fisher commented that she saw a similarity to the Archimedes Star in this design.  I see it too.  All the little triads and groupings of six.  I have been reading Gwen's article "Using tiling theory to generate angle weaves with beads" and am excited about thinking through angle weaves (RAW, CRAW, MRAW) in a new way.  I am a very big picture person - I like to understand how everything fits together before I start exploring details - and this article helps me wrap my mind around the weave and imagine possibilities.

Star light, star bright

preview: a big pile of the work I photographed this morning

I finally got out the camera and the light box this morning and took some pictures.  Above is a preview of some of the blog entries coming soon.  Today I''m sharing the gold and blue piece.

A few years ago I caught a glimpse of Gwen Fisher's Archimedes Star, but I didn't have the pattern.  Beadwork recently had a 50% off deal on back issues so I grabbed the Aug/Sept 2009 issue.  I have been reading Maggie Meister's Classical Elegance and am currently enamored of the gold and anything color combination.

I ordered a great cache of gold beads in all sorts of sizes and finishes to see what I liked best for various projects.  Here I combined some Preciosa Ornela champagne gold 11/0s with tiny 13/0 one-cut rocailles and Japanese sky blue lined transparent light peach 11/0s.  I've linked my sources and bead colors because I buy completely on-line.  Perhaps once a year I get to a bead store and am able to buy seed beads, but mostly the stores I come across do not have the selection of seed beads I need.  So I thought I would help out my fellow on-line buyers with the details.  I can't tell you how many times I've ordered what I thought to be the perfect colors only to have something completely unlike the picture show up in my delivery.  Don't I wish I had sample cards!

Although the pattern called for Japanese 11/0s and 15/0s, I decided that the smaller size of the Czech beads would be offset by the 13/0s. This worked out fairly well although the sky blue beads would have been easier to work with if they had been smaller Czech 11/0s  as well, but in the end the piece is still very pretty.  I like the antique feel the one-cut 13/0s give to the piece, but if I made another one I would use all Japanese or all Czech round beads for more modern, clean lines.  I think the key to bead selection for me is to have opaque beads for the star and have jewel-like transparent beads fill the points.

I used Fireline and a size 12 needle and was able to make many passes through the beads.

try this modified right angle weave