Hello everyone, thanks for joining me today. It is as always great to have your company. The day job has kept me busy and I've offset the stress and tiredness with a bit of Caprilicious to keep me sane. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have Caprilicious and all of you for company.

This week I picked up a length of Shibori silk. I've talked about how they make Shibori silk in a previous post. The ribbon I chose from my little stash, about a foot long is dyed in shades of maroon. I thought of the sumptuous trousers the king of Siam wore in The King and I, and when I spread the ribbon out and ballooned it, I was reminded of them.

I cut out shapes for earrings from Lacy's Stiff Stuff and anchored the silk to it, spreading it out as artistically as I could to show off the difference in colour between the peaks and troughs in the pleated material. I patted myself on the back, ‘they most definitely resemble Yul Brynner's trousers,’ I thought. In fact the outfits he wears in the movie are quite contemporary. I wouldn't mind a jacket like the one he has on myself. There's actually another one he wore in the movie that I'd love to have as well. Aren't they beautiful?? To think this movie was made in 1956, fashion has certainly come full circle!
​But, I digress.....

I embellished them lavishly with a brass passion flower, lilac dyed potato pearls, Czech glass leaves that shimmer in the light and tiny seed beads in silver lined orange and antique gold, backed them with ultrasuede and attached them to stud earrings, and Bingo, one of the most sumptuous pieces I've ever made came to life. For once, Instagram and Facebook worked in my favour and the earrings were picked up as soon as I posted them, they never got to hit the website.
​The proud owner should have them on Saturday as I posted them out straight away. I work hard to mail jewellery out within 24 hrs of being paid as I reckon that once paid for, the goods belong to the new owner, who should have them asap. That's how I like to receive my purchases and it's one of the reasons Amazon Prime is so popular. I cannot manage a 24 hr turnaround, but the next best thing will have to suffice.

That's me for this week folks. Earrings take a while to make, as they are in essence two pieces. I had to run two threaded needles, and sew them in tandem so that they would look a mirror image of one another. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx

Hello folks, how are you today? It has been a fabulous week with the weather playing ball and the sun coming out to warm our bones - the warmest February since records began, no less! We made our first trip to the garden centre - the first of many this year, I'm sure. The jet lag has finally left me and I am back to full mental and physical capacity and it feels great. We've already booked our next holidays and although they are a way away, it gives us something to look forward to. I can now proceed to organise my life and activities for the year around my holidays and weekends on call. 

I was sent this photograph by a lovely client and thought I'd use it in a different way - I love the quotation because it encapsulates exactly how I feel about Caprilicious. Each person who wears my work is a part of it and my work becomes a part of the life of the wearer. In this way we communicate without a word being said and become a part of each others life experiences, sharing a common thread that connects our reflections on life and developing a mutual understanding of who we are without even having to meet. 

I've been meaning to use the beads in this necklace for a long time, I find them quite delightful. I love the naturalness of the material - they are made of slices of a stalactite with the most beautiful crystalline structure, also called solar quartz.
The words stalactite and stalagmite can be traced back to the Greek word "stalassein," which means "to drip." This is fitting because it describes how both are formed in nature. Stalactites and stalagmites grow because of water running over and through inorganic material. It can take a very long time for most stalactites to form - they usually grow anywhere between a quarter-inch and an inch every century. When water  dripping from the end of a stalactite falls to the floor of a cave and deposits more calcite into a mound, a stalagmite eventually forms in a cone like shape. When water drips onto your body from a stalactite, it is called a 'cave kiss'!! And I'm led to understand that this is pretty rare as the water takes ages to collect the momentum to fall from the tip of the stalactite.

The slices of stalactite are naturally a creamy white in colour, and can be dyed in beautiful colours. Most of the slices I used in 'Cara' are in their natural state.

This is a necklace that sits close to the neck, but far enough away so that the edges of the beads are not uncomfortable for the wearer. The necklace is very spring like, very reminiscent of sunny summers days, floaty frocks, flowers, straw hats and weddings. The warmth of the weather this week has definitely affected me with this necklace. There's a thought - what would I have made with the same beads at the height of mid winter? I wonder!!

That's me for the week, folks. Have a lovely week, and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place. 
Until then
​xx

Hello folks, how are you today. I'm posting this from Manchester, where I am at the moment, although I will be heading back home later today. Manchester is the city I arrived at when I first moved to the UK - we had a little one bedroom apartment in a Victorian building in Didsbury, across the road from Christie's Hospital. I was just married, and had only just passed my exams to qualify as a doctor. As I was not yet qualified to work in the UK, I was a happy little housewife, making a nest in my first home. I enjoyed taking the bus in to Arndale centre, staring open mouthed at the stuff in the windows, feeling like a little country mouse. Culture shock? I was almost paralysed by it! 

Anyway, fast forward to just under 35 years and here I am, back in Manchester, training to become an examiner for the PLAB exam - the dreaded Professional and Linguistics Board Exam that all foreign medical graduates have to take to be able to work in the UK. I have now come full circle, having passed that exam myself in 1989.

I've taken a bit of a break from making jewellery, just coasting, keeping my hand in by revising and repairing pieces that seemed to need attention. 

This is a necklace of black ceramic and brushed silver tone beads that I originally made in three strands, with a handsome black onyx clasp that looked really good around the neck. However, when it was worn, it was so heavy that people were bound to find it difficult to wear. I rationalised it with the thought that women hurt and deform their feet wearing impossible stiletto heels, and can be mildly masochistic in the interest of looking good. And there was no doubt that the necklace looked good!
However, painful shoes are generally de rigueur on an evening - nobody would want to add another element to their pain, especially if there was a difficult hairdo or even a hat thrown into the mix. Sticks and stones might not break bones, but a heavy necklace and stiletto heels will feel like they have.
​ I took the necklace to India with me, but put people off from buying it and modified it this week.

This is what the original piece looked like, and although it was sad to have to break it up, I think I was right to do so. At least now, although it will never be a lightweight piece, the necklace is wearable.

Here are a couple of other pieces I made using the ceramic beads - these are single strands and  have pendants woven with tarnish resistant silver plated wire and are even lighter than the necklaces above.

I remade a necklace for one of my customers as she requested the citrine and amethyst in a necklace I had designed were swapped out with pearls. As she didn't really want the beads back, I made a simple piece with little seed pearls for an old friend who I had arranged to meet up with in Manchester - I first met her all those years ago, and she took me under her wing. She was very kind to me in those first bewildering days in a new country, so I thought I'd give her a little gift. 

That's me for this week, folks. I've only just got over  crippling jet lag and will probably be back at my workbench with a vengeance next week. Have a fantastic week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
xx

Hello folks, it's lovely to catch up with you again after a few weeks off. As you might've read in my previous posts, I've been on a visit to India and a mini break to Bangkok. It was great to see my mother again, and I met up with a load of friends and relatives in India, but it was a quiet holiday there compared to the last time when we celebrated my mother's 90th birthday. I was very excited about the trip to Thailand, having never been before and being a big fan of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, The King and I. Yul Brynner played the role of the King on Broadway for years before the film was made - the musical was called Anna and the King of Siam. I found myself looking for Yul Brynner lookalikes constantly, but alas, there were none. 

We stayed at the Radisson Blu on the main drag, the Sukhumvit Road - it was truly the road that never sleeps. The traffic built up on the road from before six am and didn't let up, till 3am. In spite of that we managed to cross to road to get to the fabulous massage parlour 'Lek' each night. Lek stayed open every night till 1am and we lay in a row having various parts of our anatomy pummelled and kneaded into shape, in preparation for the rigours of the next day. 

The hotel was fabulous, in keeping with what one would expect from a Radisson Blu - it freaked me out that they had a pane of glass between the bedroom and the loo, until I located an electrically operated shutter, Phew! There was the obligatory rooftop infinity pool, a fabulous Chinese Dimsum restaurant where we stuffed ourselves silly on the last day and fabulous views of the skyscrapers of downtown Bangkok from the rooftop bar.

We drove out to the Floating Market - it took us an hour to get there, and when we did,  it was the most awful tourist trap, with us in a motorboat zooming over dirty water, sucking in petrol fumes, sitting ducks for any vendor who caught our eye. It got so bad that we didn't dare look at anything lest the vendor pounce on us and try to get us to buy something. The prices for the tourist tat were pretty steep, and we found the same goods elsewhere with a pre bargaining asking price that was a quarter to a third of those in the floating market. Our driver was very helpful and took us there and back without mishap. Michael decided that he wanted to have a suit made and we ended up in a swanky shop called 'James Tailor' - 'James', whoever he was, had a major operation with two air conditioned shops on either side of the road, a fleet of cars, chauffeurs and loads of salespeople who obviously worked on commission. A bit of sharp bargaining, (which embarrassed my English husband who was asked to be quiet or forgo his suit) and we had ourselves a perfectly made mohair suit, sewn to Mikes measurements in a day. Everyone was happy, apart from 'James' who didn't expect any bargaining from us. 

We had decided on seeing the emerald Buddha that was inside the royal palace and the reclining Buddha in a nearby building, but by the time we got there and parked miles away from the palace and then walked to the entrance, they had closed the shrine and we decided to go back there the next morning.
Built within the grounds of the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew or 'The Temple of the Emerald Buddha' is the most important and most visited temple in Bangkok. One of the most significant features of Wat Phra Kaew is the Emerald Buddha, carved into a 66 cm tall block of Jade. However, they had covered the Buddha with gold cloth and all we could see from very far away was a tiny green face. The palace itself is very beautiful with intricate carvings and embellishments everywhere. I could imagine Yul Brynner in this setting, and looked for him in vain. There is a two km long gallery covered with incredibly detailed mural paintings depicting scenes from the epic story of the Ramayana. It is a huge complex and a proper exploration would have taken us a whole day. We spent a couple of hours there, and a bit disappointed by the emerald Buddha, we decided to go on to the Golden Buddha in a tuk- tuk - one can't go to Thailand and not use one of them. If the Emerald Buddha was too small for us, the golden one was huge, and had to be photographed in segments!

That was all the sightseeing done, now to hit the shops! My sister in law and I took off in a tuk-tuk, leaving the men by the pool. We went to the Palladium mall and looked around the bead shops and I picked up a few strings of baroque pearls and some nugget beads. I looked into a load of shops but didn't really want to carry back beads that I would be able to source for almost the same price online and have the added benefit of having them delivered to the house. I also thought that Jaipur was much better value for money, or perhaps I was just tired after all the wandering about. Whatever the reason was, I didn't do too much shopping. We found a shop with the most beautiful antique Afghani jewellery - the owner was a rotund Pashtun who had spread a mat down and was taking his post prandial siesta when we walked in. We asked him for prices of his jewellery, and retreated in shock at what he quoted, certainly way beyond my budget!

We went to see the Ladyboys in a show called Calypso - I must confess that I had expected a Carnival style extravaganza, but this show was a bit more restrained, set to jazz and swing music.

And that was it, our time in Bangkok was over. We made a trip into Patpong where the callers tried to lure us in to visit the girls half heartedly. They could see that we weren't interested, but tried anyway in a good natured desultory sort of way, waving their 'menus' at us, just in case. I bought a few souvenirs in the street market there and we got on the most Godawful, cramped, Air Asia flight back to Bangalore - as a budget airline it is probably one of the worst I've been on, never again! 

So that's the story of my trip to Bangkok, folks. I hope you enjoyed the read. Bangalore was pretty tame and uneventful in comparison as we did the same things over again - off to the Bangalore club, visited relatives, met friends and generally relaxed before we had to come home and back to work.
That's me for this week, have a great week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx

Hello folks, how are you today? I have holidayitis as we are soon off to India to visit my mother and have a few adventures of our own, and I'm really looking forward to it. I was hoping to have a little show of my own while in India, but nothing has come together yet - however, I do have a few people lined up to come and see what I have carried with me. I never tire of taking out my pieces of jewellery to show people, and then put them away in the suitcase - it never seems like a chore. That my necklaces go to a good home, that's what I want, and I show them over and over again, quite tirelessly. 

Octarine is the colour of magic - from Terry Pratchett's series of books, Discworld.
 It's the eighth colour of the Discworld rainbow, sitting where we might expect ultra-violet, and it is only visible to wizards. The eyes of wizards apparently contain, besides the usual rods and cones, octagons that detect octarine. Less magically-sensitive humans can see where octarine would be, as the blackness around the edges of fire. As we can't actually see the colour, it appears as a dark hole in space.
I made a veneer using Copper acrylic paint, Kroma Krackle and alcohol inks and as the Krackle dried it separated into plaques coloured by the alcohol ink, displaying the copper paint beneath. The veneer took almost a week to dry out before I could colour it and then I made beads with it. I wanted to seal the Krackle and painted it with liquid clay and was terrified when the alcohol ink vanished, only to reappear when I cured it with a heat gun. I used every single piece of it, wrapping the last few strips around black beads. 
Here then, is Octarine, the necklace I made using the beads with this veneer. The necklace has an enamelled toggle clasp - I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and had to have a few - a pretty clasp enhances a necklace so much and I couldn't resist it.

I've been making earring components for a while now, and decided it was time to put them together. Most of the components are misshapen on purpose in the fashion of the times. They are mostly stud earrings which are trickier to make than ones that dangle from hooks, but they have a more polished dimension to them. The asymmetric vibe which is so dear to my heart and very much in fashion is in evidence in most of them in one way or another. 

They are comfortable, colourful, funky, easy to wear and most importantly, different. I will launch them on the website when I get back from India. This is a sneak peek for you, my lovely readers, and I hope you like them. 
That's me for this week, folks. Have a lovely week and I'll catch you soon - I'll do my best to check in each week, if not, I'll catch you when I get back home. 
Until then
​xx

Hello folks, how are we today? I've been gearing up for my annual visit to India and working at all the things I need to set in motion at the day job to hold my place until I return in a few weeks. However, I still found time to play with baubles and beads. I will be carrying some of my choicest pieces back to Bangalore and have invited a few of my favourite people to come and see them. 

The title refers to the butterflies which are a focal point of this necklace. It is a deceptively simple piece, with faceted onyx beads, a diamante clasp and the butterflies. I won't say any more about it, and leave you to make up your own mind. I think you'll agree with me that it is a beauty. 

This necklace sprang from a visit to the Jangchub Ling Buddhist Centre in Stratford Upon Avon. It is a very peaceful place where they teach meditation to anyone who would like to get away from the hustle and bustle of life and living. I got talking to one of the teachers, who is also a monk and we talked about Caprilicious, among other things. I learned to knot pearls a long time ago, but found it a tedious activity. I felt sufficiently enthused to come back home and make a meditative mala necklace. 
Malas are made of 108 beads (or derivatives thereof - 18, 27, 36 or 54 would be acceptable numbers). Knots placed between the beads make it easy to handle and keep count of the number of mantras chanted during a meditation. The mala is made up of gemstones or beads that are meant to be infused with the energy that’s channeled into them through a mantra repetition. The guru bead is the bead that the tassel will attach directly to. The guru bead symbolizes the student-guru relationship and three more marker beads are placed around the mala at regular intervals. I was instructed to say an affirmation at each knot and when I finished, I took it to Stratford and it was washed in distilled water to cleanse the amazonite beads, and my friend the monk said a prayer over it.

I used sand polished matte amazonite beads to increase the tactility of the necklace, and knotted them with contrasting orange linen. On reading about amazonite on Crystal Vault, my go-to bible for such matters, I found that apart from being pretty the stone is also meant to have soothing properties. I invite you to use the link above if you want to read about it.
​I must tell you a bit about the Guru and marker beads - they are made of hand carved Bodhi seeds from Tibet. They are carved into the shape of lotuses which are symbols of peace. The Bodhi tree, a central symbol in Buddhism, is a sort of fig tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment. I'd never seen Bodhi seeds before (I've never seen a Bodhi tree either) and was quite excited to find them on a website I was visiting when I was researching my Mala.

That's me for this week, folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place - well, I'll be middair as you read next week's edition, and I'll endeavour to keep going with little snippets each week until I'm back home.
See you next week, then
Until then
​xx

Hello lovely folks, Happy New Year to you all. This year I wish that you all get your heart's desire, and that some of what your heart desires is found at Caprilicious - that would suit us both! 

My New Years Eve was quiet and peaceful, I was on call and I cooked a pot full of pilau rice and Mike helped me carry it to the midwives and doctors at work, who have to stay in the hospital perforce and had planned a midnight feast. I sat at home sewing crystals onto a piece I had half made and temporarily abandoned at its fugly stage. I was determined to have a fresh piece to show off on the website on the first day of the year. 
I think I've finally realised the direction I'm taking with Caprilicious - I'm well on the way to becoming an Occasionwear maker. Of course it depends on the wearer, and what they think is an 'occasion' that demands a piece of Caprilicious. I know ladies who wear my pieces effortlessly all day, every day.
However, I think I enjoy making the showy, highly embellished  pieces of jewellery the most, and may well concentrate on them this year. And I think this is what makes Caprilicious so precious to me - it allows me to create things that make me happy and satisfy my soul. If I made jewellery to suit other peoples requirements I would end up in a second job, not in the beautiful cloud of creativity that surrounds me and floats me through the day until I can get back home to my tools. 

This one has Shibori silk, crystals, embroidery with beads, a soutache piece, and the icing on the cake - dyed marabou feathers. I came across Shibori silk ribbon on a website I happened to be looking at and was smitten. It is silk ribbon, cut on the bias, and wound around a pipe in a circular fashion as shown. It is gathered into folds by first wrapping a silk cord around the tube and fabric tightly, making sure it is continuous. The fabric is scrunched together into little pleats under the cord and then dampened and dye allowed to seep into the silk. It sounds like a simple process, but isn't and that is reflected in the cost of the ribbon which is sold in lengths of 10 - 20 cms. It can be stretched out or used as is, in its scrunched up form.

I learned how to make petals from a woman who calls herself Shibori Girl and made three out of the orange silk that arrived first, and a ginkgo leaf out of the green silk - and wham, I ran out of ideas! The piece sat on a tray, and I saw it sitting there every day trying to attract my attention. To keep it from being too vocal, I applied myself to making other fairly complex pieces. "I just have to make these, and I'll come back to you", I reassured the poor, forlorn, fugly thing. I couldn't bear to admit to it, let alone myself, that I didn't know what to do with it.  Eventually, I decided to pull the piece together with other elements - the soutache piece is really three pieces sewn together, with the feathers placed under it and eventually Fantasia came into being.  
A 'ginkgo leaf' in Shibori dyed silk crowns the top of this pendant, embroidered with seed beads and freshwater pearls. A blue beaded Swarovski rivoli and crystals adorn the lower edge of the 'leaf'. The three plump shibori silk petals are placed to the bottom left of the pendant. A soutache piece in two layers nestles between the petals, and two dyed marabou feathers are attached securely beneath the soutache and crystals. Teardrop shaped crystals encased in soutache braiding shoot out of the main crystal and soutache piece like comets. 

And then I got taken out to dinner on New Year's Day so I wore it. I think it looks great, and it is definitely flamboyant.
​ It was certainly noticed at the restaurant we went to, and a couple of strangers came up to me and took a card off me - yes I carry business cards everywhere! One of the ladies even got in touch and has ordered a piece of jewellery from me, so that's a result.

A friend of mine came round for a cup of tea and a chat - she's a consultant at the hospital in the next town and was on call - unfortunately she lives too far away to work from home and needs to stay in the hospital when on call, so when there was a lull in the proceedings she dropped round to see me. I persuaded her to try some of my jewellery on and we spent a happy hour or two taking pictures.

That's me for now, folks. Enjoy the coming week and I'll catch you next weekend , same place, same time.
Until then
xx

p.s. Last couple of days for the Payday discount in case you fancy it - I will be travelling next month so although I might post a discount code order delivery is likely to be delayed until I get back, just so you know 
​N

Hello folks, how did your Christmas go? I hope you all had a load of fun, ate and drank yourselves silly and are now on the way to recovery, just in time for New Years Eve. Of course, if you did remember the reason why Christmas was originally celebrated for ten seconds, that's got to be a good thing, right? 

Some of my Christmas day was spent at work, in the bosom of my work family. We cracked open bottles of non alcoholic champagne, ate chocolate and cake and handed around gifts - I made little earrings for all the midwives and health care support staff who were at work that day, the patients mostly had the courtesy to stay at home until they had had their Christmas dinner and only wandered in after the pudding was served and the Tiramisu decimated, so it was a fairly quiet day, and I was able to come home and cook our Christmas dinner, having prepped it beforehand.

The design for this pendant was by Nicole Hanna and after the really tricky ones I'd made recently, it was a doddle. I love the way the wire swoops into arcs, signifying rain clouds and I added blue crystal teardrops to signify rain, and two rows of very shiny crystal beads. A diamante studded outsize lobster clasp came into play and picked up the shiny theme - very Holidayish! It was picked up last week and will soon be on its way to its forever home.

As I had Boxing Day off, I hid out in my craft room and played with clay, veneers and bead making. The oven was on non stop all day while I ferried my trays full of beads back and forth.

The veneer on the left was made on raw clay with a layer of Kroma Krackle over copper acrylic paint, coloured with alcohol inks. Once it had dried, I made the beads in the picture above. I then coated them one by one with liquid clay and hit them with a heat gun. Strangely, the Kroma Krackle turned white when I painted it with liquid clay, but the colour came back as it cured under the heat gun, albeit a bit darker than before. The veneer acquired fine bubbles when the heat gun was applied - perhaps from the Kroma Krackle or even the thick layer of acrylic paint as the black beads without the veneer sheet were fine. I wish I'd had the courage not to use the liquid clay, but I felt the need to seal the beads with something other than varnish. 

I have a series of pictures sent to me by one of my regular customers who decided that it was time one of her friends was introduced to Caprilicious Jewellery. I call it 'The Making of a Caprilicious Woman' - photographs were taken as the gift was unwrapped, the necklace tried on and the delight on the lady's face is a sight to behold, and she very graciously agreed that I could share them on my pages and on social media. I just had to share these pictures with you!

That's me for this week, folks. Have a fabulous week, and wonderful New Year's Eve celebrations (cue violins, I'm working again!) and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then
​xx

P.S. here's the payday discount code I promised you - use it to pick up something interesting, the code is HelloJanuary and lasts till the 6th of January, 2019.
xx
​N.

Hello good people, how are you. I hope you're all ready for Christmas and your chestnuts are roasting on an open fire (I've often wondered whether that was a euphemism for something else - if you know, do tell). I've been very busy at Caprilicious. This year I ran an offer on Instagram to wrap and deliver peoples presents and had quite a few takers. Some people even ordered custom made jewellery for their friends and I rushed about sending them photographs of various beads and supplies, made up the pieces once the 'ingredients' were agreed, gift wrapped and posted them out. A bit too busy for my liking, but I didn't disappoint anyone, so that's a positive.
Consequently, I have no tree or Christmas decorations up - all I have is a rather sad row of cards, which look so pathetic, I shall put them away on Boxing Day. I'm working on Christmas day, anyway, so we've kinda decided to have a very muted celebration this year. The tree in the picture is last years tree, but hey, who's checking up on me?

As I made this necklace, we had the DVD of 'DeLovely' playing for the twentieth time. Mike and I are fans of Cole Porter and old American traditional jazz music. This one is one of my favourite songs from the movie, so poignant and wistful, and it seemed to suit this necklace perfectly. The little beads are onion briolettes - they are like plump little buds with a pointy top like an onion, and they are very colourful and pretty. The necklace would look great in the neckline of a strappy dress.

Designed by Nicole Hanna, this pendant is extremely complex, with miles of wire twisting and turning on itself, pleated and folded until my fingertips were sore, and my brain befuddled from reading the pattern. It took me four days to make, as I had to take frequent rest from the scratches and piercings inflicted on my poor hands by the sharp ends of the frame wire. I hung it on a simple necklace of faceted tiger eye beads that glow with an inner fire. Mike said it looked almost Russian when I finished it with tourmaline teardrops, thence the name.

I've been meaning to make earrings for the longest time and I hurled myself headlong into finding components and putting these together. I've decided I will cut out some very funky shapes and mix and match them with the metal components and have a bit of fun. I'll have a few more to show you after Christmas. I went out and bought a couple of glossy magazines and placed the earrings on images of a couple of particularly attractive young ladies, and I think the photos turned out rather well. See what you make of them.

 I added simple stud findings as well as ornamental studs with their own clip backs, so that people like me with torn lobes from many years of ear lobe abuse can also wear them comfortably. 

That's me for this week, folks. Have a wonderful Christmas, chill out on Boxing Day and get ready to party next week on New Year's Eve - bring out the violins, I'm working on that day too!!
Have a fabulous week, and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place.
Until then,
​xx

Hello folks, how are you. Only 11 days to the big day now and I have to say this year has been a bit bleah! I haven't been able to muster up the enthusiasm to bring the decorations up from the garden shed and now it seems like it is too late to even bother, as we'll be putting them away pretty soon. I'm working on Christmas day and New Years Eve so not much festive cheer in our house this holiday season. Still, rather than turn into the Grinch, I've been trying to make an effort to join in at the hospital.

I love Dragonflies, don't you? I love the shimmer of their wings as they zoom about their business and I make them over and over again, tirelessly. The latest one I made is called Dragonfly Dreams and made from a wire design by Nicole Hanna. I've made this one in the past, and I looked for pictures of the previous versions.

And here's this years iteration, Dragonfly Dreams..............

I even made a pair of earrings to go with the necklace.

​I've been looking at the piece of embroidery I started, and it's still fugly! Nothing has changed!! Drat, I was hoping the embroidery fairy would have come by while I was asleep and done the needful, but no, it hasn't happened. To get away from it I bought three wire design tutorials and flung myself into a tangle of wire. I appear to have bought the most complicated ones I could find and my fingertips are shredded so badly that I've had to stop at regular intervals. 

I was introduced to the poetry of Sanober Khan by a friend, and I fell in love. Little couplets, easy to read with a sweet wistfulness and some longer poems, all written eloquently, leaving you wanting to read more. 
The malachite beads I used in the necklace look like little planets, I added seed pearls and a little box clasp and a very pretty necklace was born. Gratifyingly, someone else thought so and she picked it up almost straight away

I started on the second tutorial, and boy! this one's ever so difficult with twists and turns over and over, it's taken me a couple of days to get halfway through it. I'm having to stop ever so often to rest my poor fingers. I honestly think this one is one of the most difficult I've ever made, but it will be rewarding once it is done. 

That's me for this week folks. Have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next week, same time, same place.
​ Until then
​xx