Three leather bracelets

Today I've got three new bracelets to show. I got three different flat leather cords from Endless Leather and challenged myself with trying something new with them. The first piece was also a colour challenge as I opted for colours matching Pantone's Color of the Year, Radiant Orchid.

Let's start with the Radiant Orchid bracelet. For this one I used a soft, stitched nappa cord in the colour Candy and czech 11/0 seeds in the colour Opaque Berry Pearl Matte. The idea was to use one of my favourite stitches, whipping, to attach beads to the leather cord, utilizing the existing seams on each side of the flat cord. By using the seam, you don't need to make any holes in the cord so it's great for those who don't have hole punches, awls or similar tools for making holes in leather.

Below, you can see the cord partially beaded, showing the double seams it had from the beginning. You can also see a pic of the unbeaded cord at Endless Leather's website if you need a better idea of what it looked like before beading it (never thought of doing "before" photos).

I did try a few variations, as you can see above, but settled for a simple whipped stitch for this first bracelet. And while it's simple, I am quite pleased with it as my idea panned out really well. While waiting for the cord to arrive, I worried that the seam might be too tight or the nappa too hard, making it impossible to push the needle and thread under the stitches -- but this cord turned out to be perfect for this technique! If I hadn't run out of cord, I would probably have many many more bracelets just because they're so fun and easy to make.

(If you like the technique, stay tuned: I'll be doing a post showing more in detail how the embroidery is made.)

For my second bracelet, using a flat metallic leather cord, I wanted to use another one of my favourite stitches (in both "thread embroidery" and bead embroidery): the stem stitch.

First I tried it with 11/0s in one colour, but it felt too chunky so instead I went with size 15/0 black seeds and 13/0 copper charlottes. The change of sizes is the reason for the long stitches: the holes in the leather were spaced for the bigger seeds. It's also the reason why I don't have double rows of stem stitch, an idea I thought about for a bracelet I wanted to embroider with vaxed linen cord. On the other hand, making two (mirrored) rows, would've obscured the pretty metallic colour of the cord too much. So I'll save that idea for another bracelet.

Be sure to notice that big magnetic heart clasp. Normally I prefer smaller clasps, but this chubby copper heart was hard to resist.

That leads us to the third and last bracelet, which unlike the others doesn't feature seed beads. For a while the idea was just to use seed beads, but I wasn't happy with the ideas I came up with. So as a last minute resort, I picked up an antiqued silver-plate tea rose, put a matching lavender bead in the centre of it and wrapped it onto the bracelet. (You can see some of the cord on the rose here, but after taking the photos I pushed it down between the petals to make it more invisible.)

I might redo this one -- feel like making a feather stitch bracelet and this could be a good base... With or without the rose, come to think of it: the feather stitch could be used to make leaves each side of the tea rose. Or maybe make beaded daisy stitch leaves? Hrmm... I need to think this over for a while...


Anytway, that's it, my latest three bracelets. Hope you liked them!

Endless Leather designs -- part 1

Remember when I showed this pic above as a little tease (or just as a way of saying I haven't totally dropped on the planet, just not blogging much)? Well, finally I'm going to do some show and tell! But first the background:

Some time ago, I was made aware of the shop Endless Leather. After having looked around the shop, I was hooked: I love leather and their range was really inspiring, covering everything from basic leather cords to all sorts of flat braids and unique leather cords such as salmon fish leather. Who can resist that?

The next week I got these gorgeous salmon leather cords and a cool stingray print leather cord plus so stainless steel findings to play with. Due to many things the reveal got delayed several times, but today I'm finally ready to show you the result.

Because I'm redoing a design and searching for the perfect components, I've split the reveal into two posts, the other one to be posted on a not yet defined future date. Perhaps in a few days, perhaps in a week or two depending on the workload next week.

First design is the cat wrap bracelet I made with violet salmon leather cord, stainless steel end caps and d:o clasp. To add a little fun detail while still keeping the design simple and sleek, I slid a cat button unto the clasp's loop before attaching it to the end cap. An easy way to make a quick and simple design a bit more personal.

There's actually a "secret" to this clasp: it was created as a necklace/bracelet. Originally I planned on making it a triple bracelet, which would be a good size for it to be able to be used as a necklace too, but it felt a tad too chunky on my dainty wrist so instead it's just a doubled bracelet. In order to be convertible it need a little something I haven't made yet as I don't have the right purple beads. Yes, it's one of my favourite colour in the leather cord and, yes, I don't have the purple beads to match it! So that'll have to wait until part 2.

The second piece is a necklace made from turquoise 6 mm stingray print leather, stainless steel end caps and d:o clasp with a beaded bezel focal. The focal is attached to the end cap loops using jump rings. It would be possible to stitch the end caps directly onto the bezel, but I chose not to as by using jump rings, it is easy to remove the focal e.g. for repairs or to substitute it with something else. Like a chunky, irregularly facetted focal bead as was my original idea before settling for this beaded component instead.

The focal is made of a crackled mosaic stone with the usual white ceramic back, which I covered with a coin in order to add weight (to counterbalance the clasp) and a more attractive finish to the flipside. Of all the coins in my small collection, only two had the right size and of those two, this one had the most suitable design. I put the change from a Copenhagen visit in the supply box just because of the designs on a couple of the coins. And now it came into use.

The last piece of the day doesn't have a clasp, hence the oddly cropped photo. This is more of a fun thing I whipped together last night. I love the brown salmon cord as it looks like bark (though much, much softer!), very earthy and so totally my thing. Of cause nothing works better with bark than flowers and leaves. In this case a small bouquet of paper roses on wire. I simply wrapped the wires onto the cord for a quick, whimsical piece of jewellery celebrating the summer season.

More to come: a metal free necklace, a necklace made from the cat button bracelet -- and who knows what else as I do have more leather cord left. So stay tuned for part 2!