Monday, December 02, 2013

4th Annual Challenge of Color Hosted by Erin from Treasures Found

This is the 4th Annual Challenge of Color hosted by the gracious, very talented and generous Erin Prais-Hinz on her blog TreasuresFound; my second yearof participating and a wonderful feast for the eyes blog hop. This year we were asked to pick a palette from ColourLovers. We could also play a word game with the palette to give it a name.  I chose to pick an already created palette.
Here is the palette I chose from the ColourLovers web site.  It is called  Southwestern Sunrise.
seems my color brain still gravitates to the land of my childhood:  the southwest
This marvelous palette was created by Sunmeadow
You can view it in its full glory on ColourLovers here





With this bright and varied palette I made what I call a free form herringbone stitch double wrap bracelet.  I say free form since there is no specific color pattern to my piece.  I randomly stitched the bracelet with my Southwestern Sunset palette of  seed beads and twin beads strewn on my beading tray.  Some years ago I found little lazy susans that had a cloth surface that is perfect for containing seed beads and for picking them up with a beading needle.
Unfortunately I have not been able to find any like them since, but I have quite a few since I  bought up a bunch for beading classes I teach.



Although peyote stitch is my favorite off loom beading stitch, I really enjoy the challenge and symmetry of herring bone stitch.  It is always worked in pairs which means you can do some fun things when you think in pairs.  For example it was fun using some of the new twin beads on this bracelet since one twin is equal to 1 pair of seed beads. 

Twin Beads I used in my bracelet



I also enjoyed the challenge of making the clasp an integral part of the bracelet since making the external button hole always puts me in a stitching tizzy and usually ends up too tight!! The pair structure of the herring bone made it easy to use this as a way of creating a negative space for the button.
integrated button hole and my handmade copper button

Overall the bracelet also reminds me of a Persian carpet and rich colors of exotic lands.  
Here is a picture of it all finished up with one of my handmade buttons.
finished double wrap bracelet

Thanks so much Erin for organizing this fun event.  Please visit the other participant by heading over HERE,


12 comments:

  1. I love your bracelet. The color palette is beautiful as is the freeform stitch and your button!

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  2. Love that playful palette with its full-strength hues! Freeform herringbone was such a good choice to just have fun with it -- to fantastic effect. (And speaking of fun, I would so love to have one of those Lazy Susan's sitting on my bead table!)

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  3. What a fun bracelet and awesome color palette! The colors are so bright and cheerful and you brought them to life in your beadwork. I love the different sizes and colors of beads. I've never tried that with herringbone, but I will be. :)

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  4. How cool is that?! I love what you do with seeds. Always amazes me! Your color sense is spot on. That is a beautiful free form herringbone stitch double wrap bracelet (say that 5x fast!). One of these days I will have to try a project with seeds just to say that I did it, but I know that I will never do it again! ;-) Leave that to the experts! Thank you for your sweet words, Miss Mary. You are my 'something good' today! Thank you for playing along with me in the 4th Annual Challenge of Color. Enjoy the day! Erin

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  5. Love your color palette. Wish I dear to bead in these colors. Well perhaps, one day. And I love your bracelet!! The color mix works so well and does remind me of my travels in the Middle East!! No idea what a lazy Susan is thought ;-)

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  6. Lovely, colourful bracelet (and palette)! I really like herringbone for it's texture and this is no exception. Here both the mix of bead sizes/shapes and the stitch create an attractive texture.

    And now I feel like I could use a lazy susan like that... It looks very handy.

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  7. This is my kind of bracelet. Loads of color and textures and lots to look at. Beautiful job matching your palette.

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  8. Anonymous4/12/13 07:27

    Gorgeous bracelet and it was clearly inspired by that lovely palette!

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  9. Love the raw earthy tones that you have used that has little twists throughout. Beautifully put together, this is a gorgeous palette with a design to match. This is fabulous - just love it!

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  10. Anonymous4/12/13 23:28

    This is a gorgeous palette and I love that bracelet. Beautiful colors.

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  11. Your bracelet is lovely, and I especially like the Tila beads. Never thought to use them in Herringbone. Very pretty palette, warm and happy!

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