Bracelet: Bugle Blocks

For this bracelet I used a pattern that can be found in "Beading Across America".

The pattern is designed by June Huber and mainly consists of bugle beads in two different sizes and 15/0 seed beads.

I had to change the pattern a tad bit so it would get adapted to what I had laying around.
The pattern calls for 3mm and 8mm bugle beads. I didn't have any 8mm bugles (heck I don't even know where to get my hands on 8mm'ers), so I replaced them with 6mm bugles instead.
What you also need is 8/0 seed beads that goes inside the bigger bugle units. Since I changed the size of my longer bugles I had to replace the 8/0's with 9/0's else they  would be too big to sit nicely in place.

I chose to make my piece in black and red since for me it's more personal (my favorite colors are black and red when together). I've also been thinking about making a neck piece or something using this kind of technique since I really enjoyed doing this piece. It is also a way of using bugle beads which I don't do so very often - the fear of a cut off thread will always be there ever since it happened the first time, lol.

Bracelet: Venus

Last night I managed to figure out what I wanted to do with some 12mm twisted bugle bead in amber with a frosted AB finish.
I managed to figure it out by playing around with some other beads, and some two toned 4mm czech glass beads that I ordered last week.
I thought the combination of amber looked so nice together with the two toned beads I wanted to make something with them.

I ended up making a bracelet using both right angle weave and ladder stitch and some fringing.
I know, it can look like the center parts of the bracelet is made separately but it's made with one single thread.
First I simply started out by picking up two 11/0, one bugle, two 11/0, one 4mm, two 11/0, one bugle, two 11/0 and one 4mm. Then I went back through the beads again until I ended my thread from the second bugle bead on the opposite side of where I first started. Here I picked up three 11/0's and began working my ladder stitch; I went back through the 11/0 I ended my thread from + one of the three 11/0's I just added. And so it progressed until I had a full stripe of two 11/0's, one bugle and two 11/0's. In total I worked my units so that I had 6 rows. Then I began fringing the unit and when that was done I began all over again so that I could make another unit :)

When I had the desired length of my bracelet I added a gold plated toggle clasp ^^;

Tilas!

Finally I got my guts together and tried out working with those lovely Tila beads from Myuki. I actually only had enough to make a small piece so I decided on a bracelet.

The color I had laying around was a gunmetal (who could have known, right? lol *sarcasm*) in a matte finish. I've been caressing these tila beads for a while since it's the only ones I have in my stash and aprox. 10g (50-60 beads). I got really encouraged in working with tilas, so I'll most likely build up my stash next time with some additional tila beads.

To make this rather simple bracelet I built up the tilas by using lader stitch. I did two separate ones and then I joined them together by adding a 4mm gunmetal bead inbetween. To add some contrast and also some color I added a picot fringe in an 11/0 seed bead mix.
For the closure I added a gunmetal plated chain and some jump-rings together with a silver-plated lobster clasp. At the end of the chain I added a 6mm gunmetal bead for weight measurement.

Collar: Anubis & Book: Beaded Collars

Finally I manage to actually continue on this piece that I had begun since some while ago. I kinda saw it in front of me, and had already imagine how I wanted it, but didn't really know how to quite finish it off after I made the base that would go snug around the neck.

After I read the book Beaded Collars by Julia S. Pretl I managed to figure out how I could increase the collar so it would fall down from the neck onto the shoulders without having kinks - A perfect pass form in other words!
For anyone that is interested in learning some very basic techniques about beaded collars, I highly recommend reading this book. It gives a lot of tips on designs and also on the mathematical system on how to make beaded collars.

I used simple ladders stitch for my piece and some netting for the center part of the collar. I made the toggle clasp using peyote stitch.
The beads I used were 11/0 seed beads in purple matte iris, 40-50 gram 7mm twisted bugles in purple iris, two 4mm purple glass beads for the toggle clasp and some 11/0 galvanized gold seed beads.