The design for Mardi Gras came about one day when I was listening to the radio and the DJ kept talking about upcoming Mardi Gras festivities; directly after that he played a song called "The Stranger". One of the lyrics was "the faces of a stranger but we like to try them on". The idea of someone removing their mask just to reveal another mask (or a painted face) was just too appealing! The picture that popped into my head was almost exactly the way the pattern turned out. An interesting point that someone made was that I was 'doing a mask theme again'. It was purely unintentional, but who knows how the subconscious works, especially since I have several other sketches of masks drawn up!!
This bag was featured in the 2002 Fire Mountain Gems catalog.
This pattern requires just 13 colors of beads!