Making barnacles on a bracelet

I decided that I wanted a lot of texture on the cuff bracelet that I made for my March piece in the Bead Journal Project.  The inspiration was the seaside in late winter and early spring...the colors are more subdued and the forms you find are more stark, but it's still beautiful in that rugged New England sort of way.

 

Making the barnacle form is really easy, but it looks complex on a completed piece.  I used barnacles on Ocean Depths, shown above, too.  Let me walk you through it and show you how easy they are to stitch.

 

1. Stitch on a 10 or 12 mm bead for the center.  Don't worry about the thread showing at the sides since it will be covered when you're done.

2. Stitch stacks of beads around the outside of the center bead.  I find that by using a size 6/0 bead as the base, I can fit about 10 stacks comfortably around the outside.  For each of the stacks, I stitched up to the top of the fabric, added 1 size 6/0, 3 size 8/0s, and 1 size 11/0 bead.  Skipping the top bead, stitch back down through the stack and through the fabric.  Add the next stack. 

3. When you've come back around to the beginning, take your needle back up through the first stack.  Run your needle and thread through each of the top size 11/0 beads around the circle.  Go through the first couple of beads again, and run your needle back down through the stack.  Pull snug and knot on the back.   

Copyright 2010 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

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