MONET'S
GARDEN BRACELET
About the Kit...
The
Monet's Garden Bracelet is a fun project that
students love. It is for students who have
some familiarity with bead weaving and an
obsession with colors.
I
had been experimenting with various strategies
for blending colors along the length of a
bracelet. At about the same time, Beadwork
issued a call for project proposals to be
used in a book about what to do with your
Bead Stash -- all those small quantities of
lots of different colors you have left over.
This was perfect.
This
bracelet teaches a mathematical approach for
organizing several colors within a color blending
scheme. Also presented is a simple math formula
for personalizing your bracelet -- that is,
varying the width and length to suit your
needs. The techniques here are Square Stitch
and Fringing.
It
is important, I believe, for a contemporary
piece of jewelry to have a sense of dimensionality,
movement, and a strong use of color.
Color
blending with beads is always challenging.
It is not like paints, where you can merge
and blend colors with ease. Beads are physical
objects with set colors. You can't mush them
together, The transition from bead to bead
in any piece, requires the eye/brain, when
interacting and interpreting colors, to literally
jump a cliff between the inevitable gaps between
each bead. You want the viewer to have a satisfying,
pleasurable journey as their eye/brain moves
along that line of color-transitioning beads.
In
my pieces, I love to draw on nature's inspiration.
I gather flowers and plants and bring them
into the bead shop to match their colors as
closely as I can. For my Monet's Garden Bracelet,
I've developed instructions for both a Spring
Palette, as well as a Fall Palette. However,
the instructions would be as useful for a
monochromatic palette, such as whites to grays
to black, or a Southwest palette, such as
turquoise to corals to reds. Use your imagination
--- and use up your bead stash, in the process!
[This
re-worked version of my Monet's Garden Bracelet
is slightly different than the original version
published by Beadwork. This newer version
includes a more elaborated fringing and edging
design, and some fuller explanations of color
blending and other steps in the project.
I also vary my fringe lengths extending
from each base row--
KL].
In the Monet's Garden Bracelet
project...
What You Will Learn:
- Planning for Color Blending
-
Creating a square stitch base
-
Creative use of fringe
-
Embellishing edges along your square stitch
base
-
Adding a button clasp
Prerequisites:
-
Orientation To Beads & Jewelry Findings
- Knowledge of square stitch
-
Knowledge of simple fringing
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