Rosy Ribbons

Vintage inspired beaded ribbon bracelets

I love the fashion for wrapped bracelets and my Huckeberry Buckle workshop is all about beaded ribbons and embellished buckles. I can now confess that when I first designed it was a working 'in theory' idea.
A beaded ribbon is not like a real ribbon, it is rigid, it takes up space, it needs to have room to move and it definitely hates being pushed in and out of a buckle repeatedly.
What followed was a search for a neat and dainty, yet everso discreet clasp that I could include in my design, getting me past the technical hitch stages and back into gorgeous design territory again.
Happily the 'in-line' clasps, which I now have in my little store, are perfect for any narrow beaded bracelet designs and have proved really popular. At shows I have a demonstration bracelet, which is a double or triple length wrap bracelet... can't tell you how many times I've been asked for the pattern!
So, the pattern is now included with all orders for in-line clasps, it's also to celebrate that I have a new colour of clasp in store now, to go with matt vintage bronze finish and shiny silver plate there is now a slinky dark shiny pewtery gunmetal colour too...mmm

chasing rainbows

Rainbow swatches colour class

Yesterday we had a great workshop day at StitchnCraft in Dorset. Choosing colours for beading can be really scary, trying to find out about colour to maybe make that job easier can be totally intimidating.
So many theories, colour wheels and horrible words, analogous colours sound like they've congealed on a plate, complementary should mean side by side, shouldn't it?
Then even if you do tippy toe through the minefield of knowledge, or just plain cheat and use one of those websites that make an instant colour palette from your chosen image, oh look! they don't do that colour in glass! Doh!
Thanks to a fabulous group of students willing to laugh at the colour monster... Bahahaha!!!!!! the day wizzed by in a snowstorm of paint chips, followed by the best sound in the world, the rattle of beads in tubes as serious colour selecting took place. We even had time to bead up some test swatches so everyone could leave with the first chapter of her personal colour library beaded up. As always, I learned heaps too and have some new colour mixes to explore next time the beads come out. Thanks to everyone for coming, some of you a long way, thanks for the chocolate sins in a box (you know who you are!), and for everyone who wasn't there, here's one we made earlier...