Bright Stars with beads

Printed cotton from 1860
 from PastCrafts Etsy

It is no secret that I do like a bit of vintage, and the afore mentioned film Bright Star has some wonderful costumes... which led me to revisit 19th century printed textiles in all their dainty detail.
Then came the arrival of a new bead to play with, this time the Dragon Scale bead, next in the series of beads developed by my lovely friend and bead artist Sabine Lippert. There is no end to her inventiveness and I am enchanted by the Dragon Scale, a tiny flat diamond of sparkly glass with a hole at one end. With the textiles as inspiration I was soon playing, and I confess that more urgent tasks were completely ignored while I had a play with my new favourite bead.

BrightStar
Dragon Scale bead single strand bracelet

The beads slot neatly together to make little constellations and flowers, of course flowers. The first design is BrightStar, and can be worked as single strands of flowers, or garlands, or for a longer project, as wider cuffs.

BrightStar
ZigZag Garland bracelet

The downloadable pattern is available here. Or choose the printed and wait for the post version here.