Thursday, October 23, 2014

Make a Bracelet Using Cube Beads

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It seems I have accumulated quite a large selection of 4 mm cube beads. They are also called dice beads. Most of my inventory consists of Japanese Miyuki glass beads in a variety of colors. But I also have a selection of gemstone and shell dice beads such as turquoise, agate, tiger’s eye, mother of pearl, etc.

I decided it would be interesting to create a bracelet using various cube beads. The cube beads are a bit large and a bracelet canvas is somewhat small so the design had to be simple. I decided to make the design a simple series of square panels of one stone separated by a different colored stone. I made two such bracelets. In one case I used square panels of turquoise separated by mother of pearl and in the other the turquoise is separated by a terracotta glass bead.

The beads are woven together with Fire Line using the off loom square stitch method. I had to use a loose weave in order to get the needle through the tiny holes between the rather large beads. Then I ran the thread back through all the beads to tighten up the assembly. Finally I sewed the assembly on to a soft leather strap with snaps for closure.

The results are shown in the picture above. I usually make adornments with a more Native American flair but these men’s bracelets are of a more contemporary design. Earlier, I made some bracelets using the peyote stitch with its zig-zag pattern. You can see examples in my earlier blog post. Click here.

All of my bracelets are for sale in my trading post stores. You can find some here at Sirocco’s Trading Post (etsy) and Sirocco’s Trading Post (ArtFire).

 

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