Project 14: Finished bracelet and lessons learned

I cannot tell a lie — this project was kind of a nightmare. The beading itself went fine, but the shopping and the long and tedious (and painful) finishing work were kind of horrible. This is the second project that has drawn my blood.

But look! A finished bracelet. It has a nice weight to it and it fits perfectly around my wrist with a nice clasp. So what if it required Elmer’s glue to hold the knots in place, right? And no, I won’t show you the back. It’s an ugly mess of threads.

Lessons learned:
– Start with the right tools and you’ll save yourself a world of hurt later. In this case the fact that my original thread wouldn’t fit through my needles came back to bite me during finishing. I should have rethreaded the loom in the smaller thread.
– Know how you’re going to finish a project before you start it (a corollary to the previous lesson).

I could add any number of cynical lessons here about avoiding projects that don’t feel right, but I don’t want to belittle my experience. It was tough. I’m glad I did it. This project, like the sweater pillows, brought back a lot of memories for me. I can’t believe I’d forgotten about my beading days back in college.

Next week I’m teaming up with a friend to do a project for her garden. Have a great weekend!