A tiger lily in autumn

 Well, it's been a chilly (below 15 °C), rainy day which started out ok but ended with thunder and hail, so maybe it isn't strange than I rather think of warm autumn days, saturated with colour. And, anyway, I know it's not uncommon for beaders as well as others to be inspired by the coming season rather than the current. Even by those of us that don't bead to sell and therefore have to be ready with an appropriate collection when the season begins. Though, I'm not sure it was thoughts of autumn that (consiously) inspired this bracelet. Rather it began with a thought and a bead and then the other colours where chosen to work with it.


I made the bracelet for Heather Powers' Inspired by Nature challenges -- which you should read about if you don't already know about them -- the theme of the week being tiger lily. When I first read that my crystal chili pepper flower beads came to my mind. The chili pepper finish is kind of a shiny slightly reddish amber. It's a coating on clear glass which means it can have a charming variation in depth. The colour (to some extent) reminded me of the orange lily and the shape echoed the petals of the tiger lily.

As I only had four flowers, I also added a few similar beads in crystal brandy and then crystal apricot 8 mm daggers for leaves. For the findings, I wanted something that enhanced the sparkling autumn colours so I chose bright copper plate and solid copper (the head pins).

The delicate chain with the elongated links was twisted and folded double. Both to form a more substantial chain and to give an illusion of some sort of intertwining vine or some such. It was a bit tricky, not least since the links are so elongated that the twist ends up slightly too loose for a charm bracelet. But I still like it.

As so often it ended up being a pretty dainty bracelet (this time partially due to bead shortage, but it's also my style) and I think it might look good worn together with a couple of other autumn themed bracelets. What do you think?