CiM Testing: Montezuma

Montezuma is a sliver-rich navy blue that was an attempt to remake Prussian Blue and it is similar to that but I reckon it’s more of a dead ringer for CiM Class M Planet.

In rod form Montezuma is a dark blue but when heated it gets a marine green tinge. If you don’t encase the bead this will remain, but a layer of encasing magically does away with the green, leaving a rich navy blue. This glass behaves exactly the same way as Class M Planet did, even down to its occasional shocky-pop here and there. (Nothing serious – just warm it slowly and carefully.) That quirk aside, the glass is a doddle to use.

The photos of the spotty beads are Montezuma encased with Effetre Super Clear 006, with spots and spacers in CiM Ra. The picture at the top of this post is just Montezuma on its own.

The beads were photographed indoors in natural daylight.

CiM Testing: Ra

Ra is a silver-rich pastel lemon yellow. It’s like a slightly brighter, tad more saturated version of CiM Baked Alaska.

I didn’t strike the glass in any way; I just used it as I would any other opaque glass. I pulled it into stringer and applied it as dots to a base of CiM Flax and the dots retained their crisp edges with no bleeding or feathering.

When you heat Ra it loses its colour and looks to be off-white but as it cools the yellow returns. Baked Alaska behaves this way too.

I found Ra to be fuss-free with no shocking.

The beads were photographed indoors in natural daylight.

Tied in knots

Ages ago I bought a load of waxed cotton with the intention of combining it with my beads to make bracelets. The cotton got put in a box under my desk and forgotten about.

The other week when Chris and I were tidying up to prepare for him working from home, I rediscovered the box of cotton and remembered my plan and finally I have made some macramé bracelets!

I used to make those friendship bracelet things when I was a teenager, you know the ones made out of embroidery thread and a million tiny knots, so I'm not unfamiliar with the whole knotting thing.

I wanted to keep these bracelets simple; plain beads and basic macramé knots. I wanted them to be for everyday wear, so nothing fussy.

After a bit of faffing to work out how many beads worked best, how many knots in between them gave a balanced look, and getting the beads and the knots to sit as neatly as possible, I decided on this design as my basic macramé and lampwork bracelet.

The bracelets fit a medium 6–6.5 inch wrist but because of the sliding macramé fastening they can be adjusted for a larger wrist, or for a looser fit.

I wore the prototype bracelet all day yesterday and it's ever so comfortable.

I've written notes for potential different designs that will incorporate more beads, in more than one colour, and also ones with fewer beads – possibly slightly larger, decorated ones – so yeah, prepare for more knottiness!