The herringbone bracelet and the cat

For some reason, when I look at the colours of this bracelet, I keep thinking "cat". Don't ask me why. I guess I often think about cats -- after all, we do have eight of them and one in particular pestered me while beading this -- but I don't get why I keep having this association. Perhaps the white and nougat reminds me of this fella? The little bead wrecker is not this colour: he's black and white with yellow eyes.

Anyway, this is a simple herringbone bracelet I made after accepting a rather tricky colour challenge. I wanted a challenge after the inspirational burgundy/bronze/blue and jump on this one perhaps a second too fast. Since I only use beads I already have for these challenges, it soon proved tough to find beads in the right colours that'd work together. So after days and weeks of trial and error, I ended up with these three Japanese and Czech beads of various sizes and shapes.

Normally, I don't like stripes, but with the beads being so different, keeping the design simple felt like a smart thing. Originally, I planned to make a wrap bracelet, but the kitten wouldn't let me bead so I gave up when it was long enough to fit once around my wrist. To keep it slightly more interesting than stripes usually are, I varied the width of the petrol coloured stripes. (I screwed up the pattern in the beginning, but after having ripped it up several times, I just ignored it.) It's not a masterpiece, but I'm satisfied with the fact that I managed to do something and succeed with the challenge.

Oh, I even did *shudders* peyote... Didn't realise it until afterwards, but that beaded button I made for the closure is circular peyote. I've never done circular peyote before. Tubular, yes, but not circular.