The chicken or the egg?

Designing beadwork is a very interactive process for me; quite often one design builds upon another, incorporating bits and pieces here and there from other things I have already done. Some days the process feels like I'm riding a barge down a river; as I go around each bend, I see new sights and my work changes to include them.

These variations on designs gradually become new designs; most of the time I keep the variations to myself and only show my work when it has turned the corner, left its origins behind, and become something new in its own right. This time, I'm breaking that long-standing tradition; this bracelet is the precursor to my latest design, and, although I'm calling it a variation of that design, it actually came first.

I'm the designer here; if I want to alter the timeline, I can.

Anyway, there's a really good reason why this one has to be labeled a variation, even though it came first. See the cute little beaded bead balancing on the top of the bangle? And the giant beaded bead that it's leaning against? Those aren't my designs. They're called Infinity Dodecahedrons, and they're the work of the mathematical masterminds behind beAd Infinitum. I had to come up with a new focal for this bracelet before I could write up a pattern for it.

But, in the interest of keeping at least one part of the story straight, I'm publishing this one here before publishing the final design to my Jewelry Tales blog.

Yup, you saw it here first.