Paying Homage to the Bangle

Don't you love bangles? I think they're so great. Layer a lot of them or just one big, chunky one. So comfortable, no closures to come loose and make you lose your bracelet, so versatile (dress them up or down).

So I'm into making bangles and I'm going to find the best one (for me). I've bought some awesome patterns and will be trying them out. For now, here's what I've done:

The blue bangle you've seen from my blog soup.

 

It's wobbly and wavy and doesn't want to stay round. Not good.

And then, even though I thought I was done with pink, it seems I wasn't. So back here's another pink one and it's going in the box to Teena -- when she gets an address I can send things to. (Her house was totalled by the flood. There's no going home.)

 

These two bracelets were similarly made. Make a base of peyote stitch in size 11 delicas, then (in the blue one) add a couple of rows of larger beads and zip it up. With the pink & white one, the same base  in size 11 delicas, then switch to size 11 seeds. I like this better. (BTW, it's a pattern from Debbie VonTonder).

But I saved the best for last. Can't really compare them because they're totally different but this last one I have to show you is (so far) my favorite and I totally made it up!  First I did one version with tila beads in 2 rows and a mix of seed beads.

This was just okay. The mix of seed beads wasn't good because it made the tilas go all wonky. But I felt like there was potential there so I took it apart and then did this. I totally love it!

This time I used 3 rows of tilas and plain size 8 seeds. I really love the feel of this. And it stands up by itself. Sturdy and metallic and totally awesome. Oh, and it's exactly the right size!  

So, of course, if one is good a couple is better. Right? In the case of bangles, this is definitely true. So here's version 2 of the Tila bangle:

This one has the tilas in a sort of tile arrangement, a little different from the first one. Which was do you think it looks best?  I am just loving these and have to make more. So I just placed an order for some more tila beads. WooHoo. Beady mail. Hope they get here soon, I'm so excited about this!

Helpful Hint from Not Heloise

And finally, a helpful hint that you all may already know but I "discovered" by chance. Forgive me if you know it and please don't send comments saying, "well, duh."  Here's the deal. Do you have scissors like these? They're just little thread snipping ones and I have them in with my beading stuff for Nymo and Fireline. One day while beading I had a hard time pulling my needle through the work and all my stuff was on my lap. I was too lazy to put it down and go get the pliers. So here's what I did:

Pretty nifty, eh? (If I do say so myself.)