Snarky Bracelets and Another Giveaway / Beauties Pageant 245

Preparation for QuiltCon, the flagship event of the Modern Quilt Guild, is in full swing at From Bolt to Beauty world headquarters. I’ve attended three past QuiltCons—in Savannah, Nashville, and Atlanta—and in many ways I’m doing all the usual things to get ready for QuiltCon Raleigh, like making dinner reservations and reordering business cards. In a moment of weakness, however, I decided that there’s time in the weeks leading up to the show to fall down a new crafty rabbit hole: beaded friendship bracelets.

I’ve seen so many pretty and colorful bracelets appear in my Instagram feed and look forward to making new friends on the show floor as we swap bangles. The reality of making these trinkets, however, has not lived up to my expectations! Here are five issues I’ve encountered ...

1. Everyone else’s bracelets are turning out so sweet, whereas mine trend more snarky. My bracelets sport sayings like Procraftinator, Sew What, and Quilty AF. (Ha!)

2. I was putting my letters on backwards and didn’t realize the problem until I had made several. Check out the accompanying picture. The pile at the top are bracelets that contain mistakes! (Someone, please: Fire quality assurance!

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3. Stringing beads is more time intensive than I anticipated. Because quilts take forever to make, I thought I’d bang out, like, 20 bracelets each day in between my other to-do’s. This has not proved to be possible.

4. Also, I’m so scared the beads are going to come off that I haven’t trimmed the string tails yet. I do have some heavy-duty glue on hand, however, to secure the knots before I take scissors to the strings.

5. There has been a lot of swearing—way more than a quilt project elicits.

If you’re considering making beaded friendship bracelets for yourself, there are tons of Internet videos to guide you along. I’m using 0.8 mm elastic string and 4 mm glass beads.

Giveaway

The giveaway is closed. Congratulations to the winner, Melva!

You might remember from last week that I am newly 50. I’m continuing the birthday celebration with another giveaway. This week, enter to win a $25 gift certificate to Etsy.

I’m trying out Rafflecopter to accept entries for this contest. All you need to do is sign with your email (or Facebook credentials), and you have four ways to enter. Do one or all four of them—it’s up to you. (Note: If you’ve already signed up for my newsletter or follow me on Instagram, all you need to do is click those options to add those entries.) 

This giveaway is open to anyone anywhere in the world through 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5) on Thursday, February 15, 2024.  Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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