2 button organic industrial cuff bracelet 3038

 Summer is cooling off and a new batch of assembled designs is waiting in my basket to get published and uploaded to the fiber design section of my Etsy shop. This is an example of industrial organic a contradictory combination of rough beads dark colors and things that suggest a machine made origin.

The cuff is made with the edge stitching technique combining hand dyed cotton with bits of paracord to form a matrix that traps the nugget like beads.

 The closure is a double button and loop toggle that is offset creating a wrap-around effect.

The poly clay beads were made using a screen to produce a knurled texture making it appear that these are nuts or knobs re-purposed from some piece of machinery.

The colors are darker with black and various shade of green accented by blue and grey. The blue glass beads create a mysterious glow.

                       Available here


design and photographs © copyright 2013 WhatKnotShop

knotted choker style necklace with glass bead 2684

 This is a really simple and popular design for a choker style necklace. It's made with a pair of sliding barrel knots and a small cylindrical glass bead.

The cord is a 2 mm black leather lacing material that can be easily tied. The leather has a natural friction that holds the knots firmly one they have been worked up to a firm condition. Here's a tutorial explaining how to make this knot.

The knots can be made with as many wraps as you want. This is a smaller 13" necklace so the knots have four wraps. Bigger beads and larger necklaces can have 5 or more and still look proportional. Anything less than three wraps risks the knot coming apart.

Adjustment is made by sliding the knots on the standing part of the cord.

Here's a look at a selection of barrel beads that have the correct internal hole size. The glass beads must have a 2.5 mm or larger hole to accommodate the cord. I use beads from India that come in one pound buckets and must be sorted out. Many of them are the wrong size or have internal cracks that cause them to fall apart.

This necklace was a custom design but you can see similar designs here.

design and photographs © copyright 2013 WhatKnotShop

hardware cloth bracelet with beads 1478

 Conceptual bracelet made with green vinyl coated hardware cloth and red glass beads.


Slip-on bangle style design.

Garden chic, garage fashion, farady cage grunge.

 Glass beads have very small holes enabling the wire to be crimped over to hold them in place.

Could be made to size with 1/2" increments.

Size "medium" 7 5/8" (194 mm) no stretch to this one, it's made of coated steel.






design and photographs © copyright 2013 WhatKnotShop

red beaded cotton bangle 1823

In this design the red glass beads form a continuous layer between the cotton cords.

This is a very narrow width. High strength waxed nylon binds the cord matrix together laterally and vertically though the beads. Possible design variations include black or other color cord, alternate color beads, and a coded sequence of beads.

8 1/4" (209 mm) inside circumference

          available here



design and photographs © copyright 2012 WhatKnotShop