Supermoon Saturday

On average, the moon is about 378 195 km away. At its furthest it is nearly 400 000 km away. During a lunar perigee and full moon where the moon is at its closest point to the earth on its elliptical orbit, the lunar surface can appear up to 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than any other full moon. We were lucky enough to see this, nicknamed 'Supermoon' by scientists from NASA, on the 5th and to a lesser extent on the 6th of May. My husband and I looked at the moon through our little telescope, but my camera was unequal to the task of photographing it. 

The moon over the Sinai desert

I decided to make a piece of jewellery in honour of the supermoon. A piece of blue crackled agate, resembling the face of the moon emerged from my bead stash, and I set it in wire and surrounded it with stars in blue and white Swarovski crystals. This had the effect of brightening what would otherwise be a dull stone. I set some 'stars' in the bail and wove some crystals into the Viking knit chain for good measure. As I finished the piece, I could hear the strains of Moondance in the back of my mind, so I named the pendant after Van Morrisons lovely song.

---

And I’m trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night’s magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush
Can I just have one more moondance with you my love
Can I just make some more romance with you my love

MOONDANCE - Van Morrison
Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
’neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow

A yearning for the sun

This winter has seemed long - never endingly so - there was a short respite in the UK at the end of March, but the weather turned - a lot of people are worried that that was our summer - Oh well, if I cant have sun in the sky, I will make some to hang around the neck! With this thought, I made Summer Sunshine, out of polymer clay sunflowers in yellow and black, dusted with silver and gold mica powders and hung on multiple strands of silver lined seed beads in a Bohemian style necklace. 

I also wire wrapped a little slice of gold druzy in square sterling silver wire into a sweet pendant and hung it on a twisted silk and organza ribbon - the Droplet of Sunshine pendant. Druzy refers to a gemstone with a crystalline structure, usually quartz or agate. Golden druzy has been put in a vacuum sealed chamber and coated with a vapour of 14k gold, which then bonds with the stone at molecular level. Though druzy isnt fragile, it needs to be used carefully, to prevent damage from bumping it into surfaces, so it is really only suitable for pendants and earrings. 

So, that's summer taken care of as far as I'm concerned!

Lilac Wine - more druzy

Here's more music for you from the fantabulous Nina Simone. This is not as well known a piece of music as some of her others, but is haunting just the same.
I had an amethyst druzy pendant that I bought because I couldn't resist the strata of quartz, pink chalcedony and amethyst crowned by the stalactites of crystalline amethyst.

 It proved to be difficult to set as it had a drill at the top, and enclosing it in wire would cover up the crystalline structure. In the finish, I crowned it with a wire flourish and added two strands of golden quartz nugget beads to a few amethyst chunks to form the necklace. A couple of left over quartz nuggets were turned into earrings with the addition of amethyst chips.

I bought a second-hand rock tumbler from a lady at work - her daughter played with it as a young girl ( evidently not too often, judging by it's condition), and it was taking up room in her house. She also gave me a box full of old jewellery, some tumble stones, a few fossils and some nuggets of unpolished rock, that if I wish, I can tumble into usable pieces. She asked me to make two pendants out of the prettiest stones  - a blue cat's eye chunk, and another that looks like a mosaic of some sort. I worked hard to set the first one - it is over an inch thick, slippery, and odd shaped, and kept falling out of the mount and sliding all over the room - the air was as blue as the stone, by the time I finished, but it soon became a challenge - I was going to tame it or die trying - I'm still here, so what of the stone? .....

On a Viking knit necklace

More from the goody box

4 views

If you know what this is, post me a comment please

I need to think of something to make up the green 'stone with no name' - it promises to be difficult as well, as it is about an inch thick and an inch wide - oh well, I will just have to use those grey cells - and you will have to wait till next week to see what I come up with.
Have a good weekend, and see you - same time, same place
xx