Turquoise Temptation

Turquoise is a tricky color, if used right it can be stunning, if overdone, it's terrible I think so I decided to do a rather wide white edge to balance this fairly wide, turquoise four strand bracelet. If you think the bracelets like in this case seem to have bumpy and uneven leather edges - it's because they've never been worn. Once you wear them they will flatten out and adapt to be round and the edges will become nice and even thanks to the pressure and your body heat. The skin is cut with quilting rotary cutter and ruler so it's always perfectly even thanks to that.

Introducing - Pearl Silk

I've wanted to try this material for a while and when I was making a bracelet for my dear friend Sandra (check out her blogg here) I figured it would be a good time to do so. She wanted a simple pink bracelet and here's what we came up with: Simple three strand braid with the beautifully shining pearl silk in between the pewter threads on cerise lamb skin. Beautiful but so subtle with the white silk thread nestled in there.

Tutorial - Macramé

I promised a while back to make a macrame "how to", and here it is. You need a "calf" which is the thread/threads or piece of skin in the middle of the macramé braid (the calf is the thing that determines how long the braid will become) and two strands of wired pewter thread. It's rather hard to tell how much pewter you'll need since it depends on the width of the calf and your technique but a basic guide is to make the pewter threads at least 4 times longer then the calf. Since the macramé braid really want to twirl around it's center you need to straighten it continually during the braiding if you don't want to make for example a necklace where the twisting around the center can be really pretty. Then you just turn the braid over every 8 or so repetitions of steps 1-6.

How to make a macrame braid:
1. Arrange one pewter thread on each side of the calf.
2. Take the right thread and lift it over the calf.
3. Take the left thread and place if over the right thread, still on the left side of the calf.
4. Take the left thread and place it under the calf.
5. Continue up through the loop created between the left thread and the calf.
6. Tighten the threads and continue from step 1.

And the end result in this case is the braid shown here: Macramé can be used in many ways

Simply Cerise!

I wanted a cerise bracelet but seeing as the color stands out so much on it's own I needed a very simple but yet pretty design for it. So I went with a standard three strand braid with three threads, two silver ones surrounding a cerise copper thread. I think the result is dashing without being "too much":

Black manliness!

A friend of mine wanted a bracelet that reflected his extreme manliness so I thought long and hard about how to make a "manly man bracelet" and this is what I came up with: A variant of "katarinafläta" with a double calf which looked more manly and thick strips leather spun into thongs and an edge of twirled pewter threads.

New style pink

I found some lovely pink sheer ribbon when i was back in Sweden this summer with matching pink heart pearls and I just had to try using them for a bracelet. This is the result, a very delicate four strand braid in a for me new braiding technique:The button is a sheer pink heart making the otherwise quite milk-and-water bracelet stand out and shine:

Gifts return in the form of photos

My sister Sara was kind enough to photograph the two bracelets I made for her and my mother on my last visit to Sweden so I could show them off here. Thank you sweetie!

Think Pink!
The bracelet I made for Sara is a three strand bracelet with twisted pink copper threads in the center on white lambskin, she's as found of pink as I am so I think it suits her well:

Black n white!
My dear mother wanted something a bit more classic so we went with a "black n white" design, it's a "katarinafläta" with a black skin calf and two four strand braids framing it, set on white lambskin: