This past summer I took a bar tending course in NYC... yeah, I know. A girl's gotta have skills to fall back on right? Anyway, it turns out that the best thing I learned from that was how to make a mystery braid! My partner was a girl who was a junior at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). I was asking her all kinds of annoying questions because in one of my next lives I plan on going there. She explained what her classes were like and I remember thinking how awesome it must be to be in a college program where you are creating 24/7 - awesome. So the conversation turned to her bracelet, which was a leather band that was braided but the leather was still in one piece at either end, where the snap was. So this intrigued me. I had seen them before but never really looked at one. I asked her if she knew how it was made and she said she didn't. She took it off and we both inspected it, trying to figure out how it was made. When the class startedback up she put it back on. We had not figured it out. That bothered me.
On my train ride home I searched YouTube for the answer and was pleased to find this brilliant leatherworker woman! (I think I posted her video about snap fastening earlier.)
When I got home I made several of these. It is important to make more than one of something because you get better each time. You also develop your own methods for doing things. Once you do something a few times and "know" how to do it, that is when creativity can take hold. You can try new things and make it yours.
The next week, I went back to the class and showed the FIT girl the bracelet. I took it apart and showed her how I made it. (Just watch... she will be some famous designer and her garments will be riddled with mystery braids.... ha.)
So here are two of the bracelets I made at that time:
I made the white one below out of a leather piece from one of my father's old leather sample books. The pieces are not long enough to fit around my wrist so I made a mystery braid and then added ribbon or clamp ends and a clasp. I found these "ribbon ends" at Metaliferous in NYC. The clasp itself I took off of an old necklace. :) Reuse!
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| This is the one I made Feb 16th |
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| I have since given it away to a student. |
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