Finished Moonlit Water pendant

I've been working on a little piece which I've called either Moon Water or Moonlit Water, although I think I might have used the second version for a much earlier piece.
The piece uses white sea glass and silvery and white beads, both vintage and modern. I frequently use silver wire torcs to hang these pendants but I decided that this time I would make a beaded necklace.
(For people who think I've misspelled torc, that's the right spelling, torque has something to do with engines, sorry bit of a pet hate of mine)

This is very unusual for me, I actually drew a design for this piece, it's even turned out not too far from this!

Here's a very early stage of the piece, fixing the sea glass to a backing with rows of hand stitched beads.

This is the pendant finished, slightly out of focus sadly.

I've recently started using metals, fusing them together. So I decided to make a fastener for this piece out of silver wire.

The clasp is a T Bar style with a loop which the T bar fits through. It's made by twisting wire round itself and then fusing it with a blow torch. This wire was quite fine so I had to be careful not to just melt it. After cleaning the fused wire is hammered flat, this makes it much harder, work hardened.
In the top image you can see the mini anvil I use to hammer the shapes with a small modellers hammer.

Here's the finished piece on my work mat. I've added some embellishments to the simple beaded necklace, partly because it felt like it needed something, and also so that the pendant will sit with it's clasp visible at the side rather than at the back as usual. After all if it's such a nice fastener why hide it?
There are a some tiny baroque pearls in this piece which I found on an antique/junk stall, it's a great multi strand necklace so lots of pearls available.

Revisiting a piece of jewellery started ages ago

I believe I may have written about my plans for a blue and white ceramic piece quite some time ago. I've recently started working on it again and have got to the stage of attaching some vintage lace to one side of it.

This is the stage it got to before being put aside for months, I've taken it much further now, it's not been planned on paper, as most of my stuff isn't, but there's a definite image in my head of what I want it to be.

Here it is with all the beading finished, the problem with these 'plate' pieces is the amount of time it takes to attach the beads so that none of the backing shows anywhere. You can tell that it's been sitting around for a while in the first picture, as something has stained the backing! Not sure what but luckily it gets totally hidden in the finished piece.

In this picture you can see the edge row, this hides the join between the original backing and the leather which covers it and hides the tangled spiders web of stitches that hold all those beads in place. The lace behind it was my first idea for what to use I've sinced added another layer of different lace to go under it.

the underlayer of lace is attached to one edge of the piece, the other piece of lace will go on top and the two will be gathered and ruched and beaded within an inch of their lives. I want an effect of surf, or at least a suggestion of that, the ceramic pieces and the beads are the waves you see. I know what I mean anyway.

Here is where it is at now. Totally ungramatical sentence I know but I'm tired and it says what I mean sort of. Hopefully you can see the beginnings of the ruching. The two pieces are joined along the long edges of the top piece, both are attached to the ceramic 'plate'. Eventually there will be bead weaving extending from the end of the lower lace piece to form one side of a necklace. The other side will be all beading, but I expect I'll throw some wierdness in there, holes and twists, that sort of thing.

Watch this space. 

As an after thought I recently altered a piece I made a few years ago, which I was never happy with, I realised that it didn't hang right because it was too long. Now any one who does bead weaving will know how hard it is to take it apart, especially if you only want to take a little bit apart and leave the rest intact, well I finally got the time and the nerve to tackle it and I'm much happier with it now.

 The bottom picture show my much younger neighbour modelling the original, the other two are me showing it shortened, it looks much better on Caz but I still think it looks better shorter.

another 'plate' piece, I call it River.

Shed Destruction

This weekend instead of having a lazy time and enjoying the sun on Monday I spent the time taking down an old shed.

As you can see this was not an easy job. This is the shed after I emptied all the stuff out. The back wall was completely rotted along with most of one half of the roof, the ivy was holding it up I think. In fact once I got inside I found a large ivy stem literally holding up one piece.

This shed was standing up when we bought the house but had a piece of felt missing from it's roof. There was a roll of felt inside it but somehow it never got fixed with the result you can see.

Inside of the shed, there's what's left of a trestle table leaning against the remains of the back wall.

Now in that state you'd think taking it down would be easy, yes?

Oh no!

Having dug out all the rusty old tools left by my ex in this wreck, a bowl of tiles, buried under a ton of muck and rotten vegetation. 4 bikes, a bike rack, lawnmower, two strimmers, a dehumidifier etc etc. Took me most of Sunday to empty it out, fighting the ivy tendrils for posession of the stuff. There was also a drafting table which, amazingly, is still ok! Will need some major woodworm treatment pretty soon to protect the house.

A previous owner must have been a plumber or something I think, as there is a lot of old copper piping, what appears to be welding rods and some kind of tool which looks like it might pass a current across the prongs at it's end.

This is the good side of the shed, but you can see at the corner where it's started to fall down, or so I thought............

Those three windows you see there,  I thought I could save the glass, good idea. Having chipped away cement hard putty from the outside, I went inside to prize them loose from the frames. Well, they are now a pile of fragments!

With a crowbar, a heavy hammer a saw and a rubber mallet I attacked the shed. It took all day to get the ivy off the roof, and remove the roof itself.

With a lot of effort I had prized the corner loose by about 1/4 inch and was standing looking hopeless when a neighbour came by and asked how I was getting on.

I told him it was hopeless and I had no idea what to do next.

Stand back says our hero and proceeded to kick it with his big gardening boots. No effect except a little gentle rocking.

Well after some judicious work with a large sledge hammer here's what's left of it:

Plus a wheelie bin full of felt, nackered tools, really rotten wood and a bag of dried cement etc.

These sorts of jobs make being alone so much harder. This could be actually fun if done with a partner and good humour, done alone it's depressing, miserable and utterly exhausting, plus I hate spiders!
There are a lot of homeless invertebrates in my garden now.
There were hundreds of empty snail shells, lots of them jammed in the gap between the two roof beams, if I could have got to the camera when I took the roof down the sunlight through these shells was lovely but I was stuck there and they fell out before I could get it.

I now have three bikes to get rid off, rusty and looking rough, with probably seized chains from being shoved in this damp relic for so long. Plus the carrier for a car and some roof bars.

One amazing thing; the box of ceramic floor tiles the ex foolishly trusted to a shelf on the wall of such a rotten building, had all survived their fall unbroken, this may have a lot to do with the levels of leaf litter and ivy that cushioned their fall!

Well all I have to do now is dispose of the remains, easier said than done without a car, still one thing at a time eh.

The antidote to all this filthy hard work, I've been working on this piece of jewellery. I haven't done much with netting stitches lately. Should be pretty hopefully.

Recent work

I thought it was time to put something new on here so here are a few pics of some recent pieces I've made.

Gift Wrapped and Gorgeous boutique

This one uses an old brooch with lovely crystal stones and a length of vintage lace. The edges have a mixture of vintage and modern beads, including some gorgeous, french cut steel, 1920s ones and then the lace is wound with more beads. The necklace is finished with lengths of brick stitch weaving and fastened with a vintage mother of pearl button.

 

Gift Wrapped and Georgeous boutique

I'm very proud of this one, it's one of the few pieces that was properly planned, and as a result took much longer to make than usual! Took it apart several times. It mostly consists of brick stitch using modern Japanese beads and including some larger vintage beads. It was all worth it though, as it has been selected to go into a new book called 'Showcase 500 beaded jewellery' (probably spelled jewelry I expect, american book!) which is published in August. Absolutely amazed and excited about that.

Gift Wrapped and Gorgeous Boutique

Here's another one that took a long while to make, not because of actual making time but because I put it aside for ages because I couldn't decide how to make the necklace part. Finally finished it and I'm quite pleased. I haven't done one of these 'plate' style pieces for a while, lots of small pieces of glass surrounded by bead embroidery, rather than just one piece in a beaded mount. I think I should do more.

Currently working on a 3d piece, it will hopefully be a Little Owl made with beads and lace, taking a while to work out the right technique. I've made his eyes, quite pleased with them, but I can't get beyond the calico base at the moment, I think I've got a good shape now, just have to be brave and start working.

Here are the eyes, it's obviously going to be a long job! I just need to avoid kitsch or naffness, easy really.