March On!

I'm not usually early when it comes to beady deadlines. In fact, I'm notorious for waiting until the last possible minute and then scrambling to think of a name for something I just created, take pictures, edit pictures, write Etsy listings, upload to flickr. Argh!

Oddly enough, though, I finished my March freeform peyote cuff for the Bead Journal Project 2011. And I finished it early! And it's photographed and listed.

Am I turning over a new leaf now that I'm a year older? Probably not. I'll probably fall right back into my procrastinating ways when it comes to April through December...

I was actually a bit surprised when it came time to work on the March freeform. For these cuffs to turn out the way I want, I like to have at least twenty different types of beads. It's important, to me at least, to have a variety of sizes and shapes; and since I'm doing these freeforms to coordinate with each month's birthstone, I need lots of beads of a certain color.

When I started going through my beads, I wasn't sure I had enough that fell into the aquamarine colorway to be able to create a cuff! I have loads and loads of delicas, but only wound up with two or three shades/finishes of those in the right color. I had a few Czech glass seed beads of the right hue, but not as many as I would have liked. I wound up having to cheat a bit and use some white and clear beads to make up the difference for the smaller beads. But I hit the jackpot when I started going through my "random" beads -- faux pearls, some funky glass beads of different shapes and sizes, and even some cats' eye beads in the perfect shade of aquamarine.


The result of my not having as many seed beads to work with meant that I wound up using a little more netting than usual, just because it covers more area than straight peyote would cover. Having more of the larger beads gives this cuff way more texture than usual.

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Speaking of texture, next month's bracelet will be all about texture... the birthstone for April (at least according to the chart I found) is diamond. So I've already started gathering lots and lots of clear beads.