Evo Lutherie

Most of my instruments are easier to play with a strap. I think a custom designed uke deserves a custom strap to match.

My first beaded strap was for the tenor uke made by my brother-in-law, Howard Replogle, of Ebi Ukuleles. Beaded on a loom, the front features a New Mexico sun figure above clouds dripping a rainbow. The drops gather into a stream and form my signature double helix pattern. The other end of the strap is a night sky with constellations, including the Big and Little Dippers and Orion.

While buying beads for my first strap, I saw a container of beads in various colors of brown and tan, which reminded me of snakeskin. That gave me the idea for a snakeskin pattern. A snake is the same shape as a strap, so why not the whole snake? I used peyote stitch for this one, which works better for the diagonals in the pattern. I used the same Diamondback pattern for the rosette on my 5-string tenor ukulele.

Katherine’s Dogwood uke needed a custom strap. This was an ambitious project, using peyote stitch and tiny #11 beads, taking 70 hours to complete.

A Yellow Brick Road strap seemed a natural for the Oz Harp Ukulele. Stitched on a loom, it went much faster than the Diamondback or Dogwood patterns.

More Wonderland characters would have been very difficult with the limited resolution of beadwork for a strap, but the card suits worked well. This was also beaded on a loom.