The Woman in Red

The Woman in Red in the clip is Kelly Le Brock, who out-Marilyned Marilyn Monroe! Poor Gene Wilder didn't stand a chance, his little bulgy eyes were out on stalks so far they were in danger of popping right out of his head!

Hello readers, thanks for joining me this evening. I am looking forward to the Bank Holiday weekend, although unless the weather plays nice there may not be much to look forward to. This week was all about the colour red. I was inspired by pictures of Hungarian dancers in national costume to make a piece using my latest love for soutache. 

Csardas

A Csárdás is a traditional Hungarian folk dance. It was popularized by Romany  bands in Hungary and the neighboring lands of Serbia, Croatia, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Transylvania and Bulgaria. The music starts out slow and then the tempo picks up with the female dancers in costumes of red and black whirling their skirts as they leap and move to the music.

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​ Inspired by the colours in these costumes, I swirled soutache braids around a poppy jasper cabochon, anchored by beadwork. Poppy jasper is a beautiful stone, which gives the appearance of poppies painted onto a dark background. Apart from being pretty, it is meant to have properties such as enhancing communication and organizational abilities, relaxation, and a sense of wholeness, acting primarily on the root chakra. Of course, being pretty is more than enough for my purposes. And, I learned how to make a beaded fringe - the colour and movement in the fringe are irresistible, I love it! I'm definitely going to be making more fringes in the future - colour and movement - who could ask for anything more?

A lady from India who is due to visit Britain shortly asked me to make her a necklace in red - she had a price point in mind, and I suspect, a Caprilicious design that she has seen on a mutual friend. It took me a while to understand the unvoiced delicate issue that she wanted a necklace like the one her friends bought at my last exhibition, but my brain finally clicked into gear. Without remaking the necklace in question, I tried to make a similar piece for her. After all they both live in the same town and may end up at the same party. I wouldn't want them to wear the same piece of jewellery like a pair of twins.
My upbringing has given me a horror of this. My sister and I used to be dressed in identical clothes - my mother was obsessed with a need to dispense 'fairness' and bought us both the exact same items when we went shopping. It probably seemed like too much trouble to let us wear the outfits on separate occasions, (she was a working mum and therefore any aspersions I cast about laziness need to be taken with a pinch of salt) so we ended up looking like a pair of twins, one of whom (me) was eating all the food.
​I made a couple of necklaces for the lady from Bangalore to choose from.

That is all I had time to make this week. I've started on another soutache piece, but the weather has been good over the last few days and the garden beckons.
Have a lovely weekend and I'll catch you next Friday, same time, same place
​xx