A Statement Necklace - Work in Progress by Caprilicious Jewellery

Hello good people, wherever you are, how're you holding up?? It's raining cats and dogs (as usual) and the lovely weather we had in May seems to have gone away forever. The weather men promise that warmth and sunshine will be back in July, so that leaves 18 days to wait. Oh well, at least the gardens are getting a much needed drenching.
​ I was sitting indoors, minding my own business last weekend when I heard a massive thunder clap, and lo and behold! there was a hail storm, the likes of which I haven't seen in ages. I was really upset because one of our peonies had just come out that morning and I hadn't had a chance to go out and stake it, but it lived on to tell the tale, a bit battered, but still upright and very much alive.

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I've found that through the last six weeks of lock-down I've been steadily putting on weight and trying to halt it has been nigh on impossible. I read somewhere that to get motivation to lose weight I had to try eating in front of a mirror, naked. All that accomplished was that I frightened the cat, the husband keened in distress and I put my clothes back again in a hurry. Back to the drawing board, then.
​ I discussed this with my mother, who watches her weight at the age of 92 and she advised me to cook my own food and I'd lose weight perforce - who's she kidding?? She lives in India and has a cook bring her meals to her on a tray - I've always had to cook my own meals, so that isn't the way forward. If any of you good people reading this have any suggestions, do feel free to weigh in - I'll try almost anything, as you've read earlier!!

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And so, to the Creative Hope Jewelry Project - my piece, Hope Springs Eternal made Honorable Mention and I'm due to receive a few items of silver and other components in the post shortly.
​Holly Gage, the organiser said that it was a closely run contest and it took the organisers ages to sort out duplicate votes and comments and eventually the winners were named. 
I have to say that I wasn't watching the turtle as I considered the phoenix box made by Rae Evans to be beautiful - but what's that they say about tortoises - slow and steady etc etc??
Thank you very much to all of you who voted for me and even more if you convinced friends and family to cast a vote. Some people got so enthusiastic that they voted for everyone, without understanding the process and therefore their votes were disqualified, and others voted for the entire album of submissions - in their defence the rules weren't explicit and I should have made them clearer. It's always a bit awkward though, to beg for votes, and I think people shouldn't really feel pressured into voting for me - I requested people to go and look at the exhibition and to vote for me if they liked my piece. 

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Last week, I showed you five days of work in progress with my new piece. The whole piece is built around a particularly beautiful dichroic glass cabochon I bought ages ago. I recently decided that I was no longer going to play with enamels and wanted rid of my little collection of powders and trivets and found it while I was clearing up the space recently vacated by these items. Let me show you how I've progressed from last week. It isn't completed yet - I've got a pain in my wrist from gripping the tiny needle which at the end is totally bent out of shape from the pressure applied to push it through.

Day 6

Day 8

Day 7 - and WIlfred waits for his dinner

Day 8

Day 9 - the misshapen needle in evidence

 I will spend another evening putting a chain or string of beads on the back and it will be all ready for photographing to be in next weeks' blog post. I apologise for the quality of these pictures, they were taken at the end of each evening before I put the beads away and went to bed. The final photographs will be up to scratch, I promise. The piece has about 150 grams of beads and crystals as well as the dichroic glass cabochon, so it is not heavy. I'm sure that it will be well loved when it gets to its forever home.

The peony at dusk

That's me for this week, folks. Have a wonderful week and I'll catch up with you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then, wear your mask when you're out and about, and be very careful, we aren't over it yet.
​xx

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