Jewellery for Ms 'A'

Hello, my lovely internet friends, thanks for coming back to join me today. I've only just managed to shake off a cold and am over the worst of the jet lag - I feel like it gets worse as I get older. 

While I was in India I met a young lady who came to take a look at my jewellery and ended up buying a couple of pieces. We had made contact via the website earlier on and she wanted me to wrap a piece of turquoise she owned in copper wire. When Ms A came to the house she brought with her a little bag of bits and bobs which she wanted to have made up, among which were a pair of silver earrings, one of which had a broken catch, a few turquoise beads bought on a visit to Bhutan, lapis lazuli beads and a few pearls which came from one of the earrings. She'd made a start at stringing the beads with one of the earrings as a pendant, but had given up mid way, either bored, too busy, or unsure of the direction it was taking.

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​Ms A is an educator by profession, feisty, sensible, well spoken with a left wing attitude which chimed with mine, and I felt that although I had only just met her, we achieved an instant rapport.
​I love bags that contain treasure - well, who doesn't? The possibilities are endless especially if one is given a free hand and I could see hours of fun in that little bag, a cornucopia of fun. 

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With the two earrings being virtually identical, I wanted to make necklaces that were as different from one another as possible. There was also an anxiety that the remaining catches on the earrings might break so I drilled holes into the tops of the earrings, cut off the remaining catches and filed down the ends to make them comfortable to wear. I added garnets, labradorite and carnelian chips to the mix as there weren't quite enough beads, and knowing that the lady does not like her jewellery too bright or big, picked muted colours that are more her bag. Anyone who knows me will understand that this was a design challenge for me as I tend to design big, bold and bright!

I had a single turquoise bead left over when I finished the garnet necklace and I put it in the second necklace at first, in place of the large lapis bead that now rests above the earring/pendant.
Ms A said she wasn't keen to have turquoise in both the necklaces when I sent her a picture taken with my phone. After a bit of toing and froing, with me sending her pictures of all the suitable replacements, we decided to swap it with the lapis bead, so I remade that particular strand for her. After all, the customer is always right and should have what she wants, as far as possible! This has always been the Caprilicious credo and I do my best to keep it going.

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And then, of course it was the turn of the pendant bead which was destined to be wrapped in miles of tarnish resistant copper wire. The bead itself is pretty tiny, just over a centimetre long so I had to come up with a design that exposed as much of it as possible. I also had to make sure that the holes were covered up so that it appeared more like a cabochon than a bead. Tarnish resistant wire is coated with nylon and has to be manipulated by hand rather than with pliers as the nylon tears if held too tightly and the wire looks unsightly. It is a bit more difficult to use, however, Ms A wanted it and as I said before whatever Ms A wants, Ms A gets (sung to the tune of Whatever Lola wants.....).

There they are, then, Ms A's bag of beads, transformed into wearable pieces. I hope she is happy with them when she receives them, and wish her hours of enjoyment in them.

I had to make these pieces up as soon as possible because one of my friends is travelling to India and has agreed to carry them back with her. I wouldn't be able to trust them to the vagaries of the Indian postal system. I certainly wouldn't want them stolen and for Mrs Indian Postman to be wearing them on her next outing to the cinema!

That's me for this week, folks. Have a wonderful week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.