The Mondrian-Style Loom-work Bracelet is finished!
I changed the pattern a little bit from the original design because the two red blocks felt conflicting to me with one half of the bracelet more “blocky” and ordinary than the other half. I tried a three column alternative with one red rectangle and two white rectangle which I don’t think is perfect but at least throws in an interesting element.
I was worried about the length of the piece as my other bracelet came out about 1/2 an inch too short and I was running out of space on my loom as I wanted to make sure that the warps were long enough at the end so I could finish them off in a sane manner. I ended up having to scrap three or four rows of delicas off the original design and came out with a bracelet 6 1/2″ long – exactly the circumference of my wrist.
But the tricky thing is calculating how long your finishings and clasps will be and factor that into how long you should make your bracelet on the loom. I am still a novice “finisher” and thought that I could easily finish my loom-work bracelet off by feeding the dangling warps (12 on each side, including the excess weft) through five double headed knot cover / crimp things (per side) and then attaching the crimp end to a five-holed multi-strand end piece. Unfortunately the double-headed not cover / crimp things proved way to bulky both visually and geometrically and made the end of the bracelet look clunky and ridiculous.
So I yanked the knots out of my first finishing attempt which consequently mangled the bracelet. I had to push the bead-work down the warps on one side to give both sides workable warp lengths. I was faced with a do-or-die situation. I only had long enough warps to try one last technique to finish the bracelet ends.
I decided to string some silver crimp covers onto the loose warps, feed the warps through the five-holed multi-strand end piece and then back through the crimp covers and knot the warp to itself at the base of the crimp bead. It was tricky because of the warp length, but not nearly as time-consuming as my previous technique of weaving the warps back through the bracelet.
Once I got everything tied down, I placed a dab of bead glue to each knot and let it dry for a little bit. Then I trimmed the warp ends as close to the knot as possible. Then, for extra measure, and because I felt that the round crimp beads were not working in harmony with the bracelet’s design, I took a pair of pliers and flattened each crimp bead. I don’t have a crimp tool so I can’t say if this technique was better or worse than the traditional two-step folding-over crimp process but I think the end result works well. I positioned the flattened crimps at right angles to the beaded loom-work which I think better highlights the actual beading technique.
To finish off the piece, I attached a jump ring and magnetic closure to each end of the bracelet. Sadly, I was sloppy in my calculations and so my Mondrian-style loom-work bracelet turned out to be 7 1/2 inches long instead of 6 3/4 inches long which would’ve been my ideal length.
Oh well… it’s a great excuse to make another bracelet!
Mondrian-style Bracelet Supplies Used:
- 11/0 black delicas
- 11/0 white delicas
- 11/0 blue-purple delicas
- 11/0 red delicas
- 11/0 lime green delicas
- pre-waxed thread
- size 11 sharp beading needle
- 10 silver crimp covers
- 2 silver 5-hole multi-strand end pieces
- 2 silver jump rings
- 2 silver magnetic closures
