Islamic Architecture Inspirations

 Marcie Abney's latest 'Margie & Me' color challenge featured Islamic architecture as the inspiration for the participants. The colors were predominantly turquoise blues, accented with cream, cobalt, coral and lavender. For the first piece, I picked up some slightly dusky 6/o seed beads, square stitched them into a three-row strip, then sewed it into a three-sided rope. I gave it a natural curving shape around the wrist by stitching coral-colored size 11s between every other top bead, then accented the sides with a loop of cream and frosted cobalt beads. The bracelet is finished with a magnetic clasp (and safety chain).

 

The second piece, I decided to go brighter turquoise instead of the dusky blue. Some of the windows and scrollwork in the inspiration photos feature fancy diamond shapes, so it seemed fitting to brick stitch around one of my silver diamond shapes. I stitched a tiny line of black 15s as the 'core' row, then did cobalt, dusky lavender, turquoise 8/o hexes, and finished with my few remaining coral 11s. I ran a textured large jumpring through the space between the two sides of the turquoise hexes, and suspended the pendant from a neck strap made with leftover 6s and 8s, turning into a loop of cream Delicas.

I made another necklace in the last few days before the 'big reveal' date--a simple peyote/herringbone triangle done in turquoise, cobalt and cream seed beads, accented with a single hyacinth AB2X Swarovski bead. I used more of my diamond links at each corner, accenting the bottom one with a lavender crystal, and connecting others with scraps of cable chain for a minimal approach while remaining true to the challenge theme.