Black and White

Like most everyone, I love color. And normally my beadwork reflects my color personality....my bead stash certainly does! I buy seed beads primary because the colors attract me - only rarely for a specific pattern. As a result, my library of seed bead sizes and colors is dominated by jewel tones, AB finishes, charlottes, greens, blues and bronzes. Sure, there is the occasional matte finish or opaque red or transparent yellow, but you will look long and hard to find many pastel beads, or lavender or orange.

But, I do have various black and white beads....so when I decided to experiment with my published peyote bracelet pattern by working a stripe into the design, I chose black and white beads.

Actually the first striped version was an attempt at an all-black bracelet for a friend and golly! It was very hard to see where I was. See what I mean???

The striped weave is mostly size 15/0 hex and 15/0 rounds. It looks great, sparkles nicely. Can you believe it wasn't what my friend had in mind, so she sent it back? But took so long to make I cannot bear to sell it and it now lives in my private collection.

So this time I used black and white beads...and I love the way it turned out! And it WAS a lot easier to see the pattern.

 Since the stripe pattern is so angular, I opted not to use my usual beaded toggle, but added a slide tube clasp, attaching with the same 15/0s used in the bracelet.

Now I think it's time to do more experimenting with black and white beads. Just ordered more from my favorite bead suppliers -- Bello Modo (free shipping!) and Charlenes Beads (hard to find colors, half kilo and kilo packages).