Seed Beaded Bangle

Gosh I love seed beads. I don’t know what it is, they just make me happy. I love them. But I don’t love most of what I see made from them. I have the same problem with crochet. I prefer the practice of crocheting over the practice of knitting, but I rarely love something crocheted. It’s quite a conundrum.

I bought these seed beads years ago, and they’ve been sitting in my project bag waiting and waiting for me to come up with something to do with them. I bought this book a few years back and I was really inspired by the advanced projects shown (with pictures only, unfortunately) so I decided to just start weaving and see what happened.

This was all done in peyote stitch, which is really easy once you get past the first two rows. And even the first two rows aren’t bad, they just require a little thought. I really loved how this peyote stitch felt. It was like chainmail or snake skin. I got really inspired by it and I have big plans for a series of artwork made from seed beads, I just need to wait until I can save up the money. Beads are crazy expensive when you start talking large scale.

Once I got to this point I thought I’d just weave the sides together to make a tube and sew them together to make a bangle. It worked, sort of. But I’m not super thrilled with the results. Next time I’ll just start out using the tubular peyote stitch and I’ll get a much better outcome, I just didn’t know where I was going to end up this time when I started stitching. This stitch made something that was pretty stiff. It didn’t really want to go from pipe shape to bangle shape, so it kind of buckled in places, and I had to basically fold it in half to control that. So, it’s a little squashed looking.

Still an interesting experiment. Once I can get back to the bead store I think this experiment will send me off in a couple of different interesting directions, but mainly I’m pleased with myself because it was such a deviation from my normal style. I am a planned crafter. I plot designs, I draw diagrams, I measure, I do the math. The only time I can just let go and create is when I scrapbook, because everything else takes so much time. I just can’t stomach the thought of ripping back hours of knitting or sewing or embroidery as I experiment my way towards a finished project. It makes my stomach hurt just thinking about it. Yet, this time, I did it. And while I’m never going to give up my diagrams, I can see the benefit in just letting go and experimenting every once in a while. Just maybe once in a long while.