I found this wonderful hand-tooled Navajo
concho several years back and
knew I wanted to do something unique with it. Sometimes you have to
live
with a piece for a while until it "speaks" to you. After doing several
sketches I came up with this idea.
Since the concho is slightly curved along its
length I decided to place
it lengthwise across the wrist, attaching the beaded pieces to its sliders
in a "watch band" style. This allows the bracelet to bend around the
wrist
very comfortably. The concho is 1-1/2"W x 2"L and the beaded pieces
are 1-1/2" at their widest points.
The beadwork is done on natural brain tanned deer skin
in the lazy stitch
style, although it is hard to see because of the varying widths of the rows.
I then used a beaded edge wrapping to stitch a thicker leather to the back
of each side. This gives the bracelet a strong, flexible "body". The
ends
are finished in a three bead edge stitch and the bracelet is held in place
with
a leather strip (not shown) which ties at the back of the wrist.
This piece never fails to draw comments when I wear
it.... and, (hehe) the
dog liked it so much he stole it once... taking it outside where I found
it a
day later, covered with mud from the recent rain. Thankfully, it proved
sturdy and came through the ordeal intact. Darned dog!... |
