Mermaid, by Caprilicious Jewellery

Hello folks, how are you this week? Many apologies for being missing in action over the last few weeks but I've been having a few problems with my eyes and haven't been in a position to make anything. It's been a couple of years since I had my eyes tested and I thought I'd go along to the optician and have a new pair of glasses. Should have been simple, shouldn't it? Unfortunately, I had a significant change in the numbers for both long distance and near vision. I waited a week for my new glasses to be ready but sadly, the near vision ones were far from perfect and caused me severe headaches and pain behind the eyes. I had them replaced, but that took even more time than I thought and they aren't yet perfect. Perhaps I need to lower my expectations, after all, glasses can never accomodate like the real thing!

With some time off from work, I decided that I had to try the new pair of glasses out and make something simple - no embroidery, just a few strings of beads, perhaps? Rummaging through my bead stash usually gives me inspiration and today was no exception. A pretty pendant cast from a shell, some vibrant turquoise beads, abalone beads that I've been meaning to use for a long time and baroque pearls - and a necklace with an oceanic theme was born.

Mermaid

Abalone or Pāua is a seaweed eating edible sea snail. Its meat was prized by the Maori people of New Zealand and has now made it's way into other cuisines. Harvesting of this sea snail is highly regulated and it can only be picked from the sea bed by free divers - scuba diving gear is not allowed. Each abalone thus harvested needs to be over five inches long - anything smaller is returned to the sea bed. No person can own more than 20 Pāua or 2.5 Kg of the meat with the shell removed and recreational Pāua fishermen are not allowed to catch more than five per day. There is an extensive global black market in the collection and export of abalone meat. Pāua poaching is a major industry in New Zealand with many thousands being taken illegally, often undersized. 

The beads in this necklace are made of a mosaic of square pieces of abalone shell set in black resin, which makes them light and easy to wear. The necklace would be perfect to wear with the floaty maxi dresses of the summer which will soon be upon us, parties on the beach, cruises and barbeques - British weather permitting, of course. 

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That's me for this week, folks. Have a wonderful weekend and I'll catch you soon.
Until then
​xx