Oriental Lace Bracelet

Thank you everyone who took the time to answer the poll on the right side bar here! I really appreciate it!

This is my new bracelet I named "Oriental Lace" . I was once asked how I got to think of my designs -  the idea and inspiration for this bracelet design came from a beautiful fabric pattern I saw in Interfilier article about fashion trends for Summer 2010.

Image from Interferier.com

I fell in love with the pattern and just had to create something similar in beadweaving.
It was time consuming, as always, when it comes to designing something new, but as much fun playing with different beads size in different stitches until I found the right way to stitch the desired pattern. I then spent some more time stitching a few samples in different colors, improving ans simplifying the beadwoven pattern until I found the one that worked best. I just love this process!

Twisting and Bending Wire

OK, so this is harder than I thought. While working on this cuff, I realized that wire working requires a lot of thinking about structure and construction beforehand.
I tried to work in the same way as I, in many cases, work in beadweaving - creating a base and then add more materials as I go along and build the design. Implementing the same process with wire could have worked (I think) if it was a free form wire cuff, but in this case, it didn't work well.

I built a frame around the focal bead and then connected more pieces, one at a time. I should have measure and cut all the pieces first and then connect them with another piece of wire in order to have a symmetrical body. Another thing I learned is that I should have used thicker, harder wire for the foundation (the wire here is dead-soft 20 gauge). I also had problems with creating the closure after the whole body was finished - another thing that I should have thought of beforehand and resulted in an awkward finish.
Although I spent more than 5 hours working on it, struggling with the wire and pliers, and it didn't came out as I envisioned it, I learned a lot of things through the process, which is most important.

I have so much more to learn and practicing to do and I'm excited about it! The only bad thing I can tell about this new work is that my fingers are aching from all the twisting and bending...