Not wire, but beads!

My initial medium was beads. I love beads, but I was bitten by the wire bug a couple of years ago, and now I make mainly wire pieces. Once in a while, I make something with beads. And this is the process behind one of them.

When I got the dragon's eye cabs a couple of months ago, I knew I had to make something with them, and I also knew that at least one of them was going to be with beads.

eye bezel with picot

 I didn't think to start taking pictures right from the very beginning.. but this is a traditional peyote cab bezel. When it came time to do the last row of 15/0 in burnt orange, I added a picot at the "corners" so it would become the eye shape instead of staying round. I then did a couple of rows outwards from the bottom to make a base to embellish on. I used all of the corresponding colours that are in the eye, placed in ways to draw out the colours in the cab and be pleasing to look at.

second layer of picot

 I did hot pink picot edging on the base.. mainly because I like how it looks, and it also makes adding on to the size easier than trying to adjust with peyote.

After the pink picot edging on the peyote, I added black picots and then connected the tops of those with straight lines of beads.

starting of the duo herringbone

 I added a base of silver superduo beads as I was planning on making a neat pattern with them. At this point I didn't really know what it was going to be yet. It turned out that it was a bracelet, and that these duos were the anchors for the band.

one side

 Once I got a couple of beads in, I knew I was going to use an adapted herringbone pattern that I had been scoping out online earlier. I didn't have enough duo beads to do it in a solid herringbone, so I adapted (because necessity is the mother of invention) the pattern to suit my supplies.

I used delicas for the peyote section, but I then switched to tohos with the duos for the band section.

second side

 I am not a fan of being able to see the thread when you are finished a piece, so I did lining on the sides of the bands. This was actually very advantageous because it made going back and forth between sides and adding new thread in to be a rather easy and simple process, seeing as I just had to go up the beads on the side instead of weaving back and forth to get my thread going the right direction.

I actually stopped at these points because I needed to add thread.

side

I made the peyote bezel a bit taller than I normally would, to give it depth, and to allow for the corner tapering.

almost done the band

 The size of the band was actually partially dictated by how many duos I had to work with. I usually order 2 bags or tubes of beads of each style/colour when I know I am going to make a project, but I didn't know I was making this one until I made it, so all I had on hand was one of each.



 This ended up being a rather small bracelet. I think it measure at not quite 7in.

back view.. finished

front view.. finished

I used a herringbone panel to build the base for the antique button closure, and squared off a loop to go over it.









Thanks for reading!

Becca