Sunburst Bracelet Design / Aztec Design

Sunburst Bracelet

Above is my latest creation, a design based on a Native American pattern that I saw on a moccasin. This time I used copper-plated pewter findings which give the bracelet an interesting “older” feel. I am thinking, however, about ditching the crimping and multi-strand end piece / tube clasp technique because, although the finished product looks really nice, it is really hard to get right and is really, really time consuming. There has to be a better way to do this. Hmm… I found a rigid bracelet frame in the store the other day that I think could be a viable solution. Stay tuned…

In other news, I taught my sister how to bead weave on a loom and she quickly began weaving all sorts of beautiful designs. I think we may have a situation of student surpassing teacher here, Houston. Ha ha. Below the second bracelet she wove using plain white, shiny green and shiny teal delicas:

Gree, Blue and White Aztec Design

P.S. I really miss my scanner so I’m posting these using the old-fashioned method. It may be time to head into town for some new electronics.

Studio in the Northwoods and EAGLES!

I am happy to announce that I am now set up in my new studio in the Northwoods, Wisconsin. I packed up all of my arts and crafts, loaded down my little car and drove from Southern California to Wisconsin just as the massive heat came crashing through the palm trees. My little car has been having some engine overheating problems in recent months so I was a little worried about making the drive through the Rocky Mountains. Luckily, the engine almost exploded only twice near Vail, CO and a short pull over with emergency flashers on an enormous mountain did the trick. After chugging into Denver, the drive was pretty much flat and un-taxing the rest of the way up to Wisconsin. I must say that I particularly enjoyed driving through Iowa with its rolling pastoral landscape and wasn’t able to see much of the flood devastation from the route I took through the state. My heart goes out to all of the Iowans and their beautiful country.

I’m way up north in WI and communication such as internet access is a little challenging but I’ve discovered the magic of my sister’s laptop combined with the wonders of the local library which has undergone about 20 years of progress in the course of a year as it now not only has graduated to a computerized finding system (goodbye card catalog) and has traded its dial-up for superfast internet! I do love nature and the woods but I also like staying connected and sharing my experiences so I’m really happy that I’ll still be able to do that.

How else would I give you an update on the eagles? (I’m going to try to get some video, at least, in the upcoming week.) The eaglettes, now learning to fly, have been taking leaps out of the nest. We were worried because (before I arrived) an eaglette fell out of the nest and was hobbling on his wing. We contacted the local wildlife center and they first asked if we could contain it (Yeah right! Eagles are HUGE!) and then they came to take a look at it. They ended up rescuing it and bringing it to their rehab facilities right down the road because they discovered that the eagle had two fishhooks in it. Needless to say, the use of barb-less fishhooks is the number one priority of my Grandma now come the next lake association meeting. So with one eaglette gone, one remains in the nest and he has been quite ardently stretching his wings.

I heard an enormous crash a few days ago and looked up to see this giant winged creature spiral-swirling towards the ground. Well, we all caught our breath and went to investigate. The eagle hopped around, went into some brush and, after about 10 minutes, jumped into the air again and flew back up into the nest. Phew! We think that it’s parent wants it to leave the nest for good, though. It no longer brings it good fish meals – just a couple of morsels every now and again – and so sometimes we hear the eaglette’s sad cries. I guess it’s just part of what has to happen. It’s so interesting to see these huge birds in action, though! More to come!

The Great Northwoods – Eagle Cam Project

I’m packing up life here on the West Coast for my studio in The Great Northwoods. I’m looking forward to cool summer days, fresh green pines, clear blue lakes and much-needed space to develop and make my creations. There’s an eagle that’s made its aerie atop a nice tall pine right above my art space. I was thinking about a way to set up a live-streaming “Eagle Cam” to inconspicuously peer in on its happenings; however, since the property is set a tad back from digital civilization, and indeed most high-tech connectivity, this is proving a challenge. (To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, cellphones are best used by boarding a kayak and paddling out to the middle of the lake for “maximum bars.”) There was talk of having a satellite erected at some point but as of today, that has yet to be done.

So while the camera and capture aspect of the “Eagle Cam” isn’t so much a concern for me, the streaming part is. Hence, I’m pretty sure I can set up the camera and connect it to the computer; I’m just not sure I can connect the computer to the internet. There are cameras which act as their own servers where you can log in from any connection to view it but the trickiness arises in web browsers used to view them which can be quite limiting. So I think the way to go is stream the video using a third party software/site and then embed that info onto my own site so I don’t necessarily have to host the data myself… which then punctuates the necessity of an internet connection. Ay yi yi… Stay tuned…

Reconstituted Diamond Pattern Loom-work Bracelet

I reconstituted the original Diamond Pattern Loom-work Bracelet to fix the dividing stripes which I found problematic. Here is my solution:

The red and blue stripes gives the bracelet a cooler tone than the previous version. I mapped this red and blue striped version before I wove it and discovered that for this particular design, it’s really hard, based on the pattern and number of rows, to weave something of the ideal length. The above bracelet needs to lose about 9 (up and down) of beads to make it the correct length but the design puts that limit on either 6 (too few) or 12 (too many) by adjusting the number of columns in the white spaces.

Tube Clasps and Crimp Covers

I went to my local amazing international bead shop today and found a basket-full of sterling silver tube clasps at very reasonable, almost wholesale, prices. I picked up a few different sizes:

• 1 1/2 inch – 5 holes
• 1 inch – 4 holes
• 3/4 inch – 3 holes

I’ve found that tube clasps are the easiest and cleanest findings for loomed bracelets. The tricky thing (as with any multi-strand end piece) is finding one that has the right material, size and number of holes.

For instance, I recently finished off my Diamond-patterned loomed bracelet with a three-strand 3/4 inch stainless steel tube clasp.

I think the size of the tube clasp at 3/4-inch is ideal; however, the clasp could stand to accommodate one more hole to up it to 4 instead of 3. This I think would make the warps line more evenly with the strand holes because as is, the end warps tend to pull a little bit from the edges towards the center. Next time I could use a 4 holed 1-inch tube clasp but would that extra 1/4-inch upset the scalability of the bracelet? You don’t want to look at one of these bracelets and BAM! have the clasp jump out at you. You want to admire the pattern on the bracelet. Hmm… if anyone finds a 4 holed 3/4-inch tube clasp, please drop me a line.

One final issue with the particular clasp I used for the above bracelet is its stainless steel material. I think it’s entirely too shiny, flawless, sterile and “new” looking to adequately complement the nature of the technique. It gives the bracelet the feel of being manufactured – blech. I try to use sterling silver whenever I can to highlight the simple beauty of the craft.

You can also see from the above picture that I affixed crimp covers to hide the bent crimps of the original design. A note about using crimp covers: the ones I used were sterling silver and therefore a bit soft so take care when using your crimper (or pliers) to close the cover. If the cover doesn’t sit in the crimper the right way and you force the cover closed, it will be become dented and bent, thereby defeating its purpose. But the ones that are done the right way look quite beautiful and make the piece feel more “finished”.

Loom-work Bracelet Update

I tried to rework the Modern Loom-work Bracelet to double the size and it came out well… except that I decided to use black Beadalon wire (nylon-coated stainless steel) 7-strand for the warps and although it gives the bracelet an ideal structure (unlike regular beading wire which can easily kink), WOW, you can really see the warps in between the bead rows since it is so thick. Overall, I’m going to scratch that technique.

I was itching to weave a bracelet based on a Native American rug I saw in an art gallery book so I sketched out a modified version of it and then went to work. Mid-bracelet I decided that I didn’t like my sketch and decided to change it up a bit. Then I wasn’t sure whether I liked red-based or blue-based stripes better so I gave it both. I think it would work better with one stripe motif, red or blue but not both, and will make the appropriate changes for next time. I used regular white beading thread for the warps and weft and decided to try a tube clasp. Good choice. I LOVE the tube clasp because it is a really easy way to join together the ends of a multi-strand bracelet and then attach the finished product to your wrist (unlike a barrel clasp or a lobster claw which can be a very frustrating apparatus).

But of course math got the best of me again and I didn’t account that the tube clasp takes up about a half to a third as much room as a regular clasp so my bracelet came out too short. Believe me, I tried and tried to smush my wrist into it but it just wasn’t having it. My sister was all to eager, though, to take the bracelet off of my hands. So, I suppose in the spirit of sisterly affection, I’ll send her this one since she had such nice things to say about the Fret Board Bracelet and even gave it a marvelous debut out on the town. I’m going to affix some crimp covers before I send it to her though, assuming they work appropriately with the design once they arrive.

For this bracelet I used:

• 11/0 opaque seed beads
• Regular white beading thread
• Sterling silver crimp beads
• Stainless steel tube clasp

Fret Board Loom-work Bracelet

My sister really likes what I have been weaving and has been begging me to send her my creations. She has a small wrist, though, and so I decided that instead of re-weaving one of my past designs, I would make a custom bracelet just for her. After watching Ray Davies (The Kinks) play a beautiful guitar on Austin City Limits, I found my inspiration. I sketched out a design which included all colors and the general design of Davies’ guitar – white, black, pearly midnight blue, deep brown – but it turned out to be way too chaotic. So I chose a simple fret board pattern which is a combination of different patterns I had seen on interesting instruments like banjoleles (a miniature, ukulele-sized banjo). Ultimately, I think the concept was greater than the execution, although I’ve received quite a few compliments so far.

I thought it was high time that I expand my skills beyond the 10-column matrix and so I sketched a design which incorporated 20 bead columns. My sister said her ideal bracelet was no more than 6 1/2 inches in length so I accounted for the beaded loom work to be about 5 1/2 inches long. I accounted for 81 rows of beads which turned out to be a little less than 5 1/2 inches. I decided instead of using thread for the warps I would use wire to imitate the appearance of guitar strings (What an instrument it would be, with 21 strings!). I did, however, stick with thread for the weft.

I edged the loom work with plain white and black stripes and then created a pattern of silver (for the frets), pearly white, pearly midnight blue (for the inlays) and dark brown beads (for the wood). I think if I were to redo this bracelet I might drop the white and black stripes and add an extra row of silver beads to either end. I used both 11/0 Delicas and Toho Treasures for this project. My original design had plain dark brown beads without the inlays but I thought it might look too plain. I now think it could go either way.

This particular project raised a few challenges:

• Some of the colors are so similar it’s hard to tell them apart (midnight blue and black, pearly white and white) so keeping them separate in your tray is vital.
• It’s more difficult with wire to make sure the weft is woven over each row. I found I had more mistakes on this one than a thread-only bracelet.

I happened to be driving from my home in California across the desert into Arizona while making this bracelet so I fortiuously was able to stop in Quartzite, Arizona (a crazy rock-hound and jeweler’s paradise) and visit their big bead store (literally one of a handful of businesses open in town after March) where I found, at 50% off, just the findings I was looking for. I snagged a 1-inch five-strand end piece which was just about the right size (maybe a 1/4-inch too small) for my bracelet.

After the bracelet was woven and I removed it from the loom, I used the technique of threading the end warps (4 to 5 at a time) through crimp beads, through the end-piece loop and back through the crimp beads and then applying the crimp tool to them. NOTE: Follow the above technique for each bead one at a time or else it will be really hard to crimp the beads if you thread all the warps through the end piece and then try to crimp them. I originally attached a magnetic clasp to the end piece but the bracelet was too heavy to hold it so I switched it out with a barrel clasp. (For functionality, I probably should’ve used a lobster claw, but I like the clean look of the barrel clasp better.)

With the loom-work plus the findings, my bracelet is a little over 7 inches long. Which fits me perfectly but may be a bit big for my sister. This might not be a big deal since the wire warps give the bracelet a nice structure. She can always send it back to me and I’ll wear it, ha ha.

P.S. This bracelet REALLY sparkles in the sunlight!

Finished Mondrian-Style Loom-work Bracelet

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

Mondrian-style Loom-work Bracelet Design

Mondrian, in the De Stijl art movement, believed in abstraction to idealistically reveal color and form using horizontal lines, vertical lines and primary colors. Interestingly, modern art got a push in the 20th century from the rediscoveries of Native American and African art designs – all of which capture my attention. So, with geometric patterns naturally fit to be woven, I sketched this bracelet with Mondrian in mind.

My grid will translate into a bracelet which is a 1/2-inch (10 beads) wide and 6 1/2-inches long. The design may be better suited for a bracelet 1-inch wide but I’m mainly focusing on the end-clasp problem and am not quite ready to move onto a 20-bead array.

Noticeably, this bracelet design does not incorporate wholly primary colors. In addition to red, I am also using a blue/purple and a lime green which I think will give it more harmonious feel than a choppy bright red-bright blue-bright yellow combination.

Modern Loom-work Bracelet

I’ve been working on a lot of projects in March and wrapping up some other business ventures so that I can concentrate primarily on Totem Outpost, so things have been a little helter-skelter (but EXCITING!) around here.

I decided to try my hand at loom weaving and dreamed night and day about getting a loom. I wasn’t sure which kind to get or if I even should try MAKING a loom. I saw some pretty nice top of the line looms for a few hundred dollars but decided that I should start with the bare-bones version for a better understanding of WHY certain things are necessary in the more fancy versions.

I found a sturdy wooden loom for under $6.00 which is basically just two 12-inch dowels connecting two five-inch wooden boards with small slits in the top for holding the warps. On the other side of the wooden boards are, on one side a pair of removable knobs, and on the other side, a pair of stationary grooved (wooden) screw-like thingies to hold the warps when you warp the loom from one side to the other.

I checked out a few arts and crafts books from the library (an excellent resource) and found directions on how to warp a loom and then weave with seed beads. Even though the directions say that the craft is suitable for anyone six and up, frankly, it looked a little complex. But I decided to give it a whirl anyway and it did prove to be quite simple.

At first I purchased a package of seed beads, size 8/0 (meaning that there are eight beads per inch). However, when I popped open the package I found that, by nature, not all the beads are exactly the same size which could therefore render the loom-work project wacky. So I ordered a few colors of delicas, size 11/0 (the only size offered, which actually works out to about 20 beads per inch in modern times). Delicas are Japanese glass beads which are cylindrical in shape with a larger hole for the thread to pass through than typical seed beads. I opted for opaque colors only so I could concentrate more on the geometry of my designs rather than shading and tone.

Because delicas are more symmetrical than seed beads, it’s easy to use graph paper to sketch out designs without getting the length-width discrepancy inherent to seed beads. My graph paper has squares a little too big to get an accurate view of the finished project but I found a nifty graph paper generator online that you can use to print out appropriate-sized templates. I sketched my designs in a few monochromatic shades and then added color to complete the look.

I chose an easy pattern of squares in three bold colors (red, white and black) which I think looks simultaneous modern and organic. I decided to apply my pattern towards a bracelet 6 to 7 inches long, 10 beads (or about a half-an-inch) wide.

Before I made this bracelet, I loomed another bracelet with beading wire for the warps and pre-waxed thread for the weft (the thread that you string the beads on). I liked that the beading wire gave the bracelet structure, however, when I was finished with the piece, I had no idea what to do with the stiff wire warps. I decided to make the “Modern Bracelet” with pre-waxed thread for the wire and warps.

The end result is a bracelet which hangs naturally on the wrist which I’m not entirely sure I prefer. I wasn’t too sure, also, how to incorporate the latches into the bracelet. On one side I affixed a toggle ring by weaving it right into the bracelet along with the beads. I tried the same technique for the toggle on the other end but two problems arose:

• I made the bracelet a half-an-inch too short, thus the toggle pulled and stretched the last few rows of beads.
• The toggle loop was too stiff in the loom-work to pull through the coordinating toggle ring. I would need to attach a jump ring or something of the sort.

Unfortunately I didn’t think to buy any jump rings so I took apart the last few rows of beads to free the toggle bar. I had this five-holed spacer bar so I threaded the warps through that to stabilize the beads and then attached a knot cover/crimp thing. I didn’t know exactly how to work the knot cover/crimp thing so on close inspection it looks sloppy. I attached the toggle bar to the crimp-end of the cover/crimp thing to complete that side.

I wove the warps on the other end back through the first square of bracelet. (This took a LONG time!) I tied one of the strings to the warps but didn’t have the patience, or it was too hard to do the others so I just snipped them as close to the beads as possible. I’ll have to see if it holds up.

Voila! I made my first wearable (but somewhat sloppy) bracelet!

I have a lot of ideas about how to attach clasps and what to do with the warps for my next bracelet. I purchased a set of magnetic clasps which I think will work better for loom-work bracelets and some double-headed knot covers which I think will yield a better geometry than the ones with the crimp thing on the end.

I can’t wait to see what my loom will make next! (Although now I totally get the necessity for a device at the end of the loom to pull the warps taut. I’ve been using scotch tape, crikey.)