I had also planned to post a picture of a bracelet I made (one year ago? two years ago? lots of years ago??) that looks much the same as both of these, except you must string the beads first. It is a one-shuttle pattern, and as all the rings are regular rings, you flip the work over to make each successive ring.
Except... the bracelet has gone into hiding and must really be shy, as I can't even find a photo of it!
My point (and I do have one) is that although all the bracelets look very much alike, they're each made differently. I remember making two of the single-shuttle, regular ring bracelets in a week, tatting mostly at lunchtime. I have an hour each day for lunch - which, after eating, tidying up, and going back to my desk, I generally have at least 30 minutes to tat, load shuttles, string beads, sew in ends, whatever. So I would have probably had two and a half hours that week to work on each bracelet at lunchtime. I did start one Sunday night and sewed in ends after I got home in the evenings, but most of the tatting was done at lunchtime at work. I have been working on the two-shuttle SCMR bracelet since last Saturday - and I have added only 24 beads, to bring the length to 4". I don't see myself finishing this one; it's consuming too much of my time, and I have some other irons in the fire right now.
In the future, when I'm making a bracelet like these, I'll consider these factors:
- Single shuttle, pre-strung beads:
- Am I using a random mix of beads, or identical beads? Either type can be strung quickly and easily using the Bead Stringer.
- Does it need to be completed quickly?
- Is working with loose beads going to be a problem?
- Single shuttle SCMR:
- Am I using a shuttle that's narrow enough that beads really get in the way?
- Will it be easier working with just a single shuttle?
- Do I want to choose bead placement as I tat?
- Two-shuttle SCMR:
- Am I using two different colors of thread? This could be really fun, too, because you wouldn't necessarily have to have one color on each side of the bracelet - a Shoe-Lace Trick (SLT) would reverse the thread positions, and you could alternate colors in a 1-1 pattern (or a 2-2, or a 3-3, or 2-1, or whatever you like). Lots of possibilities here! I may have to explore some of them!