Frankenstein Bracelet
An 'embellished kumihimo' bracelet — a Japanese-braided cord with a wild Frankensteined mix of blue glass, crystal, and frosted-moonstone beads worked in along the length, finished with a brass sunflower button-and-loop closure. Class piece from the Needlework Guild of Minnesota with Maggie T Designs.
- Designer
- Maggie T Designs
- Fabric
- kumihimo cord (kit-supplied)
- Finished
- August 2024
A class I took through the Needlework Guild of Minnesota taught from a Maggie T Designs kit. Maggie calls these “embellished kumihimo” — kumihimo is the traditional Japanese braiding technique worked on a round foam disc with numbered slots for threads, and the embellished part is what makes Maggie’s version distinctive: assorted beads, crystals, and charms get worked into the braid as it’s plaited, so the finished cord arrives already loaded with bead clusters along its length instead of needing to be threaded after the fact.
The “Frankenstein” in the name refers to the chaotic mix of bead shapes and finishes that goes into the design — faceted teardrop crystals, AB-coated glass, frosted moonstone rounds, tiny seed beads, oval briolettes — none of which traditionally play together, all of which get stitched in side-by-side anyway. The result reads as a single shimmering blue-on-blue cord that throws a different reflection from every angle. Closure is a vintage-style bronze sunflower button at one end and a braided cord loop at the other.
Workspace shown in the second photo: the kumihimo disc mounted on Maggie T’s wooden Tripod stand, which holds the disc up so the bobbin-weighted bead strings can hang freely below while you braid. The Velcro pads on the disc surface are a Maggie T touch — they hold the loose embellishment beads in place between rounds so they don’t roll off the workspace.
Started, finished, and FFO’d in a single class day — August 10, 2024.