Karyn Healey-White at Releases by Rufydoof mentors a group of seed beaders who work together on defined projects over approximately a 2-month period. The projects are chosen in advance by Karyn. We have a Facebook page where comments and help can be found as everyone works along, and it's another great stretch for your skills as a beader!
I started out with the Retro Daisies project, which was taken from Bead & Button April 2012. This is one of the few times I have NOT read the instructions through to the end. As I was a bit pressed for time, I just gathered the needed supplies and jumped right in. Don't do that. I did realize that the bracelet was very delicate as I was working on it, and looked quite short...but I anticipated the designer coming up with some amazing closure at the end that solved that problem and extended the length of the bracelet. Or not. Nope. No extending closure. Just one very, very short (ie, 5") bracelet. Back to the instructions...nope; hadn't made any errors, and I actually had used beads that were a bit larger than those called for in the instructions.
*sigh*
Consensus is...
1. The instructions are wrong and the beads called for should be size 15 Japanese one-cuts, which are a lot larger than the size 15 czech charlottes called for. I used size 13 czech charlottes, which should be larger than required.
2. The instructions are wrong and the repeats need to be increased.
In any case, this did certainly stretch my beading skills, which is a good thing! As the instructions had you end each of the threads as you worked on the bracelet, there was no way to add to it from where I left off....even if the charlottes WOULD accept more thread than was already in there, which I guarantee you they would not have!
You'll be surprised to hear, I did NOT throw it against a wall! Instead, I created a closure with loops at each end; the loops go over the flower at each end of the (original) bracelet and attach to an extension which duplicates about 1" of the original pattern. This adds about 1 1/2" to the size of the bracelet, making it wearable at least by a small human being. I think it worked out quite nicely.
You will notice there is one lone different color flower on the bracelet. Yes, that's on purpose. If you check this link to my charity, the National Inclusion Project you will see their logo. This bracelet is my ode to Inclusion, in the style of the National Inclusion Project.
In this picture, you can see the design of the closure I created, to the left. It consists of a 1.5" strip of the trellis base, with a loop on each end which goes over the flower at each end of the original bracelet...and I've added another flower to the closure as well.
BTW, I love the little flowers created for this project, and will definitely be using those again in some manner!
The second project I am working on still and thoroughly enjoying....it's very Zen. It is a bead embroidery cuff project from Sherry Sarafini, published in Beadwork Jan 2011, called Ripple Effect.
After much searching of websites, I finally found some cabochons I loved from Glass Art Cabochons and am using this one to build my bracelet.
The cabochon is a little larger than the one Sherry used for hers, but so far so good. It is not finished, but here's progress so far!
