Variations on a Theme

Gorgeous Hand Painted Silk Fiber

Prior to receiving my 12" Mirrix loom, I practiced for a brief time weaving Affinity bracelets on my little rigid heddle Cricket loom. As I’ve explained before, the Cricket works remarkably well however it really doesn’t stand up to the Mirrix in terms of ease, convenience and efficiency. Also I did not as yet have the wonderful fibers that Mirrix provides for the Craftsy course. And if you don’t think their unique fibers make a huge difference, I can tell you that you are wrong. As evidence, some of my earlier results can be seen below using a variety of bits and scraps that I already had in my stash.

 
From left to right, the first bracelet was woven using raw sari silk waste yarn as the weft and a matching cotton blend yarn as the warp. I've noticed that the size 6 beads that I used seem a little too large for this design. Second from left is a diminutive little girl’s bracelet using extra fine Finca no. 8 perle cotton with size 11 delicas and 4mm gold beads (although what little girl would want an all brown bracelet?) Third from left is a wool/silk DK-weight yarn with square-shaped size 6s. Huge. (And notice my wonky selvedges. Yikes. I can always say that it's a design feature though, right?) I especially like the fourth from left which uses another multi cotton warp and a matching boucle as weft. The rainbow design next was woven entirely from multicolored embroidery floss. Boring. C-lon macramé floss and railroad yarn with a bit of unskilled "advanced tapestry techniques" are used on the last bracelet. Hey, I was winging it.

 

 
The bracelet shown above was inspired by some bracelets that I saw on Etsy. I decided to get fancy by adding a little bling with a pin that I purchased at Michaels. (It’s not really a pin but a sew-on bead made by Bead Landing and is still available the last time I looked.) Although when worn it covers a good deal of the weaving, I couldn’t resist the way it matched the Araucania linen/ cotton blend yarn used in the bracelet. Perfect.

The Columbian Clay bracelet shown below is from the final bonus section of the Craftsy class. I really like how the clunkiness of the clay beads plays against the fanciness of the hand painted silk fibers.

 

The wonderful thing about Affinity bracelets is that you can never tire of making them and of course, you can never have too many. My high school aged daughter and her friends are smitten with them so I suspect I'll be making lots more or better yet purchasing another loom and teaching them to make their own.

xxx, Karen