Hello friends once again, how nice to hear from you again. The days are flying by and the chill of autumn is beginning to bite, no matter how much I try to ignore it and continue to go out in sandals and summer dresses. We are in Britain hoping for an Indian Summer but frantically shaking the creases out of our cardigans and taking our winter woolies out of mothballs. I showed you a piece of bead embroidery I was making over the last couple of weeks and it was finally ready to use. I am trying out a new little collection of leather necklaces and bracelets, with embroidery and beads and gemstones. I hope you will like them as I unveil them week by week. I have one for you today, and will have a second in a couple of weeks. It is a rather work intensive endeavour, but nothing good comes easily and I'm happy to put in the effort to make one of a kind pieces, that even I wouldn't try to replicate. CometAs you can see, the necklace doesn't sit quite right on the plastic model, probably because It has no back to it - which is why I tried it on myself, and I can tell you, it is soft and comfortable, and I love it. The black slab of agate is surrounded by tiny silvery beads and crystals and at the tip is the tail of the comet, shooting off coloured marquise crystals into a dark night sky. AureliaAurelia is a necklace made with a pendant and beads I picked up in Bangkok. The pendant is made of old sea glass, and the beads are gently faceted pear shaped chalcedony in a sea foam green. I've added baroque pearls and electroplated ceramic cornflake beads from Greece. Aurelia is a name of Latin origin meaning "the golden one". Aurelia is the shimmering female form of the Roman classic Aurelius, and was very common in the Roman Empire and is also the name of Julius Caesar's mother. It means 'shimmering' and golden, and I think that's quite an apt name for this piece.
That's me for this week, folks. Have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then xx
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Sara is a lady who draws, paints and crochets - she also runs a Flickr group to support 'quality art and handmade'. She selects five designs as her favourites of the week and allows people to vote for them on her blog. My JuJu Woman necklace was selected this week - if you have a moment to spare, do visit her site and cast me a vote in the next seven days, please. http://sara-artstudio.blogspot.co.uk/ The pictures above are, from left to right, jaggery, citrine nuggets, and brown sugar. Jaggery and brown sugar are cane sugar with a higher content of molasses than white sugar - this makes the partially refined sugar moister. Jaggery is sold in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean, and I have seen it piled high in the Asian shops in the UK just before Asian festivals, and sold in 5 kilo doorstop sized lumps wrapped in jute sacks. My mother always had some in her pantry, and as children, we would sneak in and steal a few chunks, stuffing them into our mouths with a handful of raisins and cashew nuts and run into the garden, before we were caught and given a good hiding for our trouble. It is no wonder then, that I love citrine nuggets - they remind me of my childhood. I have come to the sad conclusion that I am a bit of a glutton - I often describe beautifully marked gemstones as 'almost edible', though why anyone would choose to eat a stone is beyond me. It may be because I fall in love with the gemstone on the basis that more than one sense is excited - it not only looks good, but it looks like it might taste good! I do, however, stop short of actually putting them in my mouth - even though they have no calories. When I made this necklace with citrine nuggets, all I could think of was brown sugar, no other name seemed to fit -so, that's what I called it. Brown SugarI have had the carnelian leaf pendant in my collection for ages, as well as the opalite leaf in the next piece I am going to show you. The waxy translucence of the carnelian seemed to go perfectly with the crystalline structure of the citrine. The opalite leaf in the next piece glows as if it has been touched by the light of the moon. I teamed it with faceted blue chalcedony and banded blue agate - I made the entire piece up, and then felt that the leaf, on its own, was too small for the size of the stones in the necklace, so I unpicked the whole piece, and make a wire frame for the pendant. I had a new weave I wanted to try out, taught by a wire artisan called Mary Tucker. Her weaves have a flat appearance, almost like a woven fabric - I tried out a short segment, and when I separated the wires, I liked the result so much, I incorporated it into the frame for the pendant. Once I had enlarged the pendant, it fitted well amidst the large stones in the necklace. I originally bought the blue chalcedony because the blue reminded me of the baroque palace of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg and I remained true to that idea with the name for the necklace. Until St Petersburg, I had never seen such a brilliantly coloured palace - and it is indeed magical - I was there so many years ago, but have never forgotten its beauty. KatrinaLaila
Some beads are too pretty to languish in a dark corner, and these Nepalese wooden beads, as well as the coral, fall into that category. The coral has been dyed black - it is illegal to make jewellery out of real black coral, as it is a protected species by international law. These tear drops are made of sponge coral, which is from a sustainable source, and dyed black. Nevertheless, the tear drops are very pretty, and I have tried to use them to their best effect in this necklace. The origin of the name is Arabic where it means 'dark as the night, and mysterious', but when I dug a bit further, it would appear that the Urban Dictionary has claimed it as a noun - the definition of 'a laila' is interesting, to say the least. Fuchsia Frolic I love agate beads that have markings on them - they are so delicate, it is almost impossible to believe that this artistry is wrought by nature. With these waxy translucent whisper pink Dragon's vein agate beads, I found it easy to design a piece adding just a soupçon of bling - a couple of magenta agate beads and a carved amethyst dragon bead, a few spacers - and there it was - the colours remind me of a fuchsia. Fuchsias have always brought to mind a lady in a ball gown being twirled around in a fast quickstep that imbues her antebellum gown with a life of its own, ballooning around her, so her ankles and delicate dancing slippers are visible . Thanks for stopping by my blog folks, I hope you have enjoyed this weeks efforts. Catch you next week, same time, same place
xx |
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