Vinnie Garoon Cowboy Beads from Schmuckatelli Co.

Early last week I received some of the new Vinnie Garoon Cowboy Beads, in pewter and black oxide finishes, from Schmuckatelli Co.

I've had the chance to try them out with a variety of paracord knot work, including a standard double button knot, that my friend, Manny had sent me a video tutorial for, that he came across a couple of weeks ago.

Another knot tying friend, Knotty Notions, provided some links to Chinese and French tutorials, in the comments of the above mentioned video tutorial, including a single strand version of the knot, that has the look of an expanded Celtic Button Knot.

See knot #790 in 'The Ashley Book of Knots' for a similar, if not the same knot, as the double button, but tied with a mandrel and pins instead of in hand...

I bought a couple of variations of arrowhead bolo tie tips(may not show up in search results if out of stock), that I found on etsy, to try out with the new beads in place of a slider medallion.  I added a couple of small Gaucho knots to one, tied with 0.9mm cord, just above where the paracord fits into the tips.  These are glue in type tips, where there are other types of tips that crimp onto the cord ends.


I was thinking of braiding some leather for the bolo tie, but it would have to be really thin/flat for a loop of it to fit through the skull bead's hole.  I don't want to order some only to find out that it might not work, so I'll wait until I get a chance to look first hand at what Hobby Lobby or Michael's craft store has available and if there is something suitable.  You can buy braided leather cord in different colors for bolo ties/bracelets/necklaces, but that'd be cheating, lol...

My digital camera's memory card just up and died, so this bolo tie variation happens to be the last photo I managed to get off it that wasn't corrupted.  I still have the old SD card somewheres 'round abouts, so I'll hunt it down and hope it works...

I tied a couple of single strand inline double button knots, in place of some tie tips, for this black paracord bolo tie, with a pewter Vinnie Garoon Cowbead Bead facing forward and a black oxide bead facing back, and I think it kinda makes it look like the skull bead is wearing a shirt/bandana.

I had tried a two-bight Turk's head knot first, but decided I'd probably try that later on with gutting enough of the inner strands to do the ends with firesteels tucked inside each tip, so I could call it a 'Survival Bolo Tie', lol.

Another knot tying friend made a bracelet for me and mailed it to me during their visit to Yellowstone last week.  Here's a couple of quotes of the bracelet description from an email they sent me.

"So when playing around with César’s NxN checkered patterns using the tool you made me aware of (Gridmaker) I mixed a 3x3 checker with a 3 pass Gaucho and I don’t know why but it just struck me that you’d like it (or at least I hope you do)."

"A 3x3 Checkered at either end, complete with O2 Gaucho bights, that transitions to a 3Pass Gaucho in the middle. It took great care in the design and start point to ensure that the Gaucho centre section is perfectly centralised on the leather blank.  Built from a base 54Px5B standard TH (green), then all of the pattern transition ‘magic’ is done with the navy interweave, so the final knot is 162Px15B. I get my leather blanks and unassembled press-studs/snaps from Tandy Leather because most pre-made ones are too small once the knot is added. So I also cut and assembled the leather blank & skull snap to provide to fit you – I normally aim for slightly loose because slightly tight is a disaster. "

 Thank you, Phil, much appreciated! :)