Bead Embroidery ... on a small scale

After getting my work table cleaned off from my last big project (a competition piece, but more on that in a later post!), I decided I wanted to try my hand at something small.  And new.

Going through my sewing basket, I came across some of the button frames that you can cover with fabric to match an outfit and decided to try my hand at making a bead embroidered button. I went through my stash of hand dyed fabrics left over from a myriad of quilting projects and pulled three different colorways and have made two different buttons so far.  The first button was a combination of gold and matte olive/apple green beads and the second was a combination of blues with brass/gold accents.   After completing my beautiful buttons, I knew I had to incorporate them into something ...

The Gahanna Bead Studio has just recently started stocking a very cute little cube bead (1.8 mm) that I just had to have and I have bought quite a few tubes in several different colors.  Using those to create a peyote band, I made two different styles of a cuff bracelet.

The blue bead embroidered bracelet has the peyote running length-wise on the long side of the band and I created a button hole at the end of one side.  With the rotation of the peyote stitch, this bracelet is very stiff and much more like a bangle type bracelet.  I actually liked the sawtooth appearance on the edges so decided to leave them 'as is'.  The only additional accent was the 15/0 bronze seed beads that I used to finish the ends of the band and to accent the button hole.


The green/gold bead embroidered bracelet has the peyote running width-wise across the band with a peyote loop to form the second half of the toggle. Since I don't like to see exposed thread on my work, I used the 15/0 bronze seed beads to add a picot edging length-wise on the bracelet and to fill in the 'gaps' on the bracelet ends.  I really like how they looked in the peyote toggle too.  This bracelet is very fluid and fabric-like.