Sunday 30 October 2022
Metal bubble bath
Friday 28 October 2022
Rings in rings in rings
After my trip to the cemetery on Saturday I walked into the city centre, popped into a record shop, paid a visit to Fitzbillies for a couple of their famous and ridiculously delicious Chelsea buns, then caught the bus back home. At some point in that very small window of being out and surrounded by other people, I caught some kind of lurg. Four lateral flow tests say it's not Covid but I'm constantly coughing, sneezing and my energy levels are very low. Pre-Covid era I'd not had a cold for years so maybe it's just a bog standard one of those and I've forgotten what they feel like? Whatever, I've been next-to useless this week so not much beadmaking has happened.
However, I cannot ever bear to be doing nothing for long and if my hands aren't making something I get kind of edgy. I spent Monday in bed with a temperature but I wanted to be making something so I fished out my box of jump rings, grabbed two pairs of pliers and sat in bed making a chain maille bracelet.
'Byzantine' weave bracelet |
The next day I lounged about downstairs and made two more bracelets and some earrings.
'Byzantine' weave bracelet with patina |
'Shaggy Loops' earrings |
I've said before with regards to crochet, I'm very much a process maker. I get so much enjoyment out of the process of creating things that I tend to make stuff just for the sake of making it. This is fine but it means I end up with all these finished things – blankets, socks, doilies, jewellery – that I don't need and am never going to use.
So I've resurrected the chain maille jewellery page of my shop and put some of the items I've made for sale on there. Maybe there's someone out there who would like to give a bracelet or earrings a new home?
I've tracked down the winner of the last prize draw and I've figured out a foolproof way for how I'm going to run the monthly draws from now on. More details on that soon.
Thursday 27 October 2022
The squirrels made me do it
Sunday 23 October 2022
Headpins
I made a little batch of headpins this week. My propane was running low and that affects any stringerwork or surface design and makes it go a bit feathery so I made a couple of fancy headpins until the feathery thing started happening and then I switched to plainer ones until the gas ran out.
Yesterday I turned the headpins into a pendant and some earrings.
The pendant was made with the fancier headpin which has a petal-like design on it:
Then there are these lavender earrings:
I love the way the CiM Wisteria reacted with the Effetre Lavender Blue 247 to create that purple band.
The other three earring pairs are made with headpins and globes of glass that are one third Effetre Light Turquoise 232 and two thirds CiM Fjord Milky. Again, the two glasses reacted with one another, making the turquoise go all mottled and cloudy. I kept one pair really simple and hung them from flower earwires...
...and I paired the other ones with copper findings and hypoallergenic niobium earwires.
The remaining pair aren't really headpins at all - no pins, so just... heads? I attached some sterling loops to these and dangled them from sterling drop shapes. These earrings are really light and swishy.
All of these are in my shop at the time of typing.
I still haven't been able to track down the winner of the prize draw so Tina G, if on the off-chance you're reading this, please contact me so I can get your beads to you. If I've not heard back from you by the end of November I'm going to do the draw again.