A Surfers Beach Necklace - a Work in Progress by Caprilicious

Hello folks, how are you faring this week? I hope you're all safe and well and are keeping your spirits up. Somehow, we have to stumble from one day to the next, masks and visors on, navigating a world full of minefields. My Christmas countdown calendar says 35 days to Christmas - I'm going to put my lights on and decorations up on the first of December, just to get out of this awful drabness that seems to have descended over us like a thick fog.  

This week, I've busied myself making custom orders - I very rarely make these but I have a few on my books this month for a couple of regular customers who have designed their own pieces and entrusted the making of them to me. In between times I've started up a new embroidered necklace and thought I'd show you how far I've got with it today. It started with a visit from a friend who 'donated' a few beads from her stash to the Caprilicious effort. One of them was a Swarovski element that was so beautifully packaged it seemed almost a shame to undo the package. I thought the unpacking of it was worth a mention, and a look. The actual element is a beautiful shiny little crystal 'coral' branch, only an inch and a half long, in its own casing.

I'm loth to throw away the packaging, it's so beautiful, with the double film of durable plastic in its own display frame that protects this little element from the rigours of being knocked about in a beader's stash. 

I said to myself 'This beautiful piece of crystal needs to be used - I cannot allow it to go into my bead stash and disappear, only to find it aeons later.' I'm always anxious that I might run out of design ideas or the ability to execute them - Caprilicious came into my life like a bolt from the blue, having never had any creative impulses before, and I'm consequently a bit worried that this may be just a wonderful dream.
My original thought was that it was a piece of 'coral' but then I decided it would be incorporated into a seascape as a piece of driftwood lying on a beach. I started with the sea - I wanted the look of a rough sea - with waves that would be worthy of a surfer, which could have spat a piece of driftwood onto the shore. 

A lot of people would have cut out the spaces between the waves after the beads were added, but I worried that the threads might accidentally be snipped through - and that would have disastrous consequences that don't bear thinking about! The piece therefore had to be designed and a drawing made before I put it together - and that took me the best part of the week - I've been brave and included the drawing made on the back of a packet of Weetabix, and cut out so that I could hold it around my neck to check out the fit. Obviously, all the backing material and Ultrasuede will have to be cut out to fit and I've made life a bit more complicated for myself than I'd like, but I think the negative space will enhance the look of the piece - a low cut blouse allowing a flash of skin would be really effective - what do you think?

A couple of pairs of earrings for my final Earrings Show appearance came off my workspace while I was mulling over the design for my surfers beach necklace. One of them has some of my favourite diamante elements and the other, rustic ceramic spikes in black and gold, with stripy agate beads softened by twisted wire ruffles and coral.

That's me for this week, folks. Take good care of yourselves and stay safe - just a while longer until they bring us the all singing, all dancing vaccine that will save us all from the dreaded C word and give us our life back again - hopefully! 
Have a great week, and I'll catch you again next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx