Leather Cuff

Many many years ago one of the beading magazines I get had a great pattern for a bead-embroidered leather cuff.  I ordered the strips of leather and the copper cuff that would give the bracelet its shape:

And then promptly lost the pages that had the instructions.  Not a big deal, really -- I know how to bead-embroider, and it was wasn't hard to figure out that the cuff would be sandwiched by the strips, and I probably would have changed some of the embroidery anyway to make use of my own beads and favorite colors.  Nonetheless, the kit lingered in a basket for a very long time.

Until I received the April 2012 issue of Bead & Button, which had a pattern for a leather bracelet by Tamara Scott; instead of beading right onto the leather, the instructions had you make the floral components first, and then sew them on.  Perfect!  And because so much of the leather background would be exposed, it would work up quite a bit faster than the original pattern.

I had to make some adjustments, of course.  My leather strips were narrower, so I made fewer and smaller flowers and leaves:

I was on my own putting it together, since the Bead & Button pattern just backed the embellished leather and added a snap for closure.  I sewed my two strips of leather together on one long side with a beaded whip stitch (the picot edge from the pattern took too long), inserted the copper cuff, sewed up the other side, and then trimmed and sewed closed the ends.

Here it is:

And it only took me almost 15 years!