Neither This Blog Nor My Etsy Store Is Dead ...

... and what better way to demonstrate those two facts than by posting pictures of my latest offering?
One reason I haven't been posting, reading or commenting as much on blogs is because I've been having a glut of ideas for jewelry pieces, and thus have been spending a lot of time making them.

Most of them are sitting around in a half-finished state, as problems arise and have to be troubleshot, worked around or --- sometimes --- the piece in question needs to be started over altogether.

(Problems usually take the form of too many loose ends not staying hidden, too many unsightly knots or awkward bulges, or a bead unexpectedly shattering as I try to force too many strands of thread through it.)

But I have two new projects that *are* totally done, and here's one of them!

As I might have mentioned before, I love geometric shapes. I also love contrasting colors.
This panel bracelet manages to tie both of those things I think are awesome together, with its framed boxes in alternating canary yellow and ... whatever you call a light blue that has a (very slight) hint of teal or turquoise in it. Each of those panels is made of twelve rows of twelve seed beads, all woven together with peyote stitch. (The beads are wider than they are long, so a 12 x 12 matrix ends up being a rectangle, not a square).
Another thing I love --- on bracelets, at least; on necklaces they tend not to stay fastened --- is a button or toggle clasp. Much easier to open or close than those thumb-operated ones with the tiny levers that require you either to have long fingernails (nope) or to never, ever lose your grip (also nope) in order to open them one-handed. Lately, just about everything I make has a button clasp, but I did get a set of toggle clasps recently that I decided to use making these:

(That's my arm --- big, hairy, and stylish!)

I made three of these; two to sell/wear myself until they are sold, and one I gave as a gift.

I really like this motif of the rectangular panels with geometric designs on them strung together on a sort of cuff. I think it's one of the more original design templates I've come up with, and I'm definitely doing a lot more with it.