Maloccio Bracelet

I got the idea for this linked stretchy bracelet from one I bought from Sears (uh, yes, Sears!)a while back. I thought the design would be easy to copy. 80 beads and 144 links later I ended up with something that looks nothing like the "inspiration piece". But that's how it should be right? Not to copy a piece but to use the idea and make something unique out if it.


I made 16 nine-link segments, then used stretchy cord to thread on my glass beads, alternating evil-eye and spiral patterns. After stringing the five rows of beads, I tied off the ten loose ends, dabbed the knots with hypo cement, and done. Which is really over-simplifying. I had one issue after another making this, ending with gluing the B and SpaceBar keys together on my keyboard with the hypo cement. (TIP: Don't manhandle tubes of glue near your computer.)


It makes for a rather heavy (80 glass beads tend to weigh a lot) and wide bracelet, but I like that. With the chain links running one way and the stretchy cord running the other, you can wear it scrunched up, or, stretch it out some on your wrist to make it even wider. I like that, too. But you could easily change the size and number of links and beads in this design to make the finished bracelet larger/smaller.

A Couple More Tie-Dyes

For this V-neck tee I used two colors, Magenta and Purple, diluted to various strengths to get various shades. The purple, at its darkest, appears almost black, but it really is purple. I tried to center the start of the spiral on the point of the V-neck, letting the rest of the pattern end up as it may.
I used just two colors on this one, too, Lime and Blue, again diluting to various strengths to get varying shades. For this, I purposefully left white spacing between the colors as I didn't want the blues and greens bleeding together too much.
The "Left Overs" shirt; because no matter how you plan, there is always, always, dye left over and tossing it haphazardly on whatever odd cotton garment you find in the recesses of your closet is more fun then simply tossing the dye. :)

My Left-Overs are never planned, they are just the result of aimlessly tossing extra dye on a garment I can spare if it turns out gruesome. With this Left-Over, however, I accidentally invented a new "technique" that I can, in the future, perfect and use on purpose.
For this technique, your dye colors need to all be in the same color family so that when they bleed together you get pleasing intermediary colors and not mud. (This shirt had various strengths of Magenta, Purple and Blue applied to it.) Get your garment really wet, not dripping but much wetter than you would want if trying to dye a pattern. Lay the garment out flat but with nice wrinkles and squirt the dye colors on heavily, in a random, overlapping way. You want to thoroughly cover the shirt. Once covered, ball the garment up and squish and twist it, unballing and re-squishing several times, forcing the colors to blend and bleed and do what they may. (If the shirt is not wet enough you won't get enough bleed action.) Leave balled up and wrap & wait as normal before rinsing. If successful, your finished garment will be a grandly muddled melange of complimentary colors.
This Left-Over shirt pictured appears to have definite "lines" in it but in real life, they are not obvious. Except for on the sleeve, they weren't even noticeable until looking at the picture. I think the flash highlighted them. Anyhows, "lines" aren't good! So (note to self) to avoid them altogether, make sure the entire garment is good and wet, and don't use a narrow tipped squirt bottle to apply the dye.