You Leather Believe It! (Flight of the Brain Bee)

Inspiration is notoriously capricious....

Over the summer, I was flipping through an Arhaus jewelry catalog (see the company's site here), and saw their "Swirls and Pearls" wrap bracelet, shown below.

This image entered my mind, and planted itself there like a flowering plant. A funny thing happened then -- a brain bee came and visited this flower, then went and cross pollinated with my Viking Knit plant. The seed thereby produced dropped into my cerebral soil and matured into what later became this bracelet.

Something about the leather really captivated me. I think that the idea of the hide being a base or anchor for the VK chain is not only an interesting experiment into different media, but the qualities of each material compliment each other and form into a whole that they couldn't have been all by themselves.

Thank you, mysterious brain bee!

Xtreme beads!

Many of my pieces have featured beads inside the weave. But this green bracelet takes it to a whole new level.

Here is the weave. You can't get away from the beads. They are EVERYWHERE.

There is a red bracelet that I tried putting a bunch of beads in just at the ends, as you can see below.

It didn't turn out as striking as I had hoped, however. But it helped me learn for the next bracelet.... I decided to take the leap and try something I'd been hoping to experiment with.

The subtle beads, numerous as they are, cast a nice effect over the whole length of an otherwise bland VK chain. It also beefed up the single knit weave so it is a tougher. I think I may use this design again....