Make Lemonade

"When life throws lemons at you, make lemonade"

When a design just isn't working you can do one of three things:
1.- cut it apart and salvage the beads.
2.- undo the project and take out what is wrong/not working.
3.- call it an oportunity to maketurn it into something else.

I was working on a finger woven bracelet and had the bright idea to make a bamboo tile bead into two long beads by splitting it in half. I never gave any thought to the fact that the long bead might not work. I wanted to do a symetrical bracelet as opposed to a more freeform, any bead will do, bracelet.

Everything was looking quite nice while it was flat on the board. I liked the "less is more" look to the piece.


The problem came in when I decided to try fit it on my wrist to see if the focal bead was centered..... Oh my, ... long narrow beads just don't bend around the side of a wrist! I even had a fleeting thought of cutting the bead - fleeting, as I'm sure I would have also cut the threads and would then had to resort to solution #1.

OK, I really don't like to undo work unless it's critical or a piece that is important enough to take partially apart.


In this case I resorted to the creative solution - what else could I do with the piece that wouldn't turn into a bracelet, no matter what I did?

I grabbed some very long bamboo tile beads I had from an old placemat. They clinked together very nicely in a quiet sort of way. I added them to the bottom in a fringe-like manner. Now I have a nice, small wind chime that will make a perfect gift for someone.