Turmi - A Beading Challenge

I love an inspiring challenge and when it results in something a little different from my usual jewellery choices it is doubly satisfying. The most recent Bead Soup Cafe challenge on Facebook really got the brain cells going as well as the creative juices. The colours in the photo taken in Turmi, Ethopia that Dini Bruinsma set for this one are amazing - lots of browns and orange tones with silver.


Sometime ago I'd organised my bead stash by colour with a transparent shoebox each for red, green, blue, white and metallic beads and the smaller quantities of other colours vaguely organised but in one large box. It was to the latter I went. Somewhere there was a bag of acrylic beads in mock tortoiseshell, if only I could find them! They were laid out on my workbench together with a copy of Dini's wonderful photo whilst I considered them slowly. There were hearts without any holes, various faceted shapes and lots of flatter disc shaped beads plus a selection of spheres in various shades and sizes. A chunky necklace perhaps?

I gradually added to the mix a few other components. I was impatient to get going but first I had to go shopping for some thin cord robust enough to support the chunky beads but thin enough to go twice through their relatively small holes. Eventually everything was in place and I could actually start putting things together, wire wrapping an acrylic heart so it could hang as the focal piece of the necklace. Then how to attach the heart's new wire loop to the metal circle? A beaded tassel was constructed using brown citrine beads in various shades ranging from yellowy umber to almost black and a dark chocolate colour polyester thread. A few macrame knots to secure a dozen or so metre lengths of the chord to the ring and form the tassel head then the rather fiddly beading & knotting before trimming everything to a similar length.

For either side of the main necklace a length of same polyester thread was folded in half through the circle then tied in an overhand knot. This was threaded through the flat beads from either side then both ends went together through the metal spacer beads. The latter were brought back from a trip to South Africa so I though they'd be appropriate for this Africa inspired piece. Further up more overhand knots separated the smaller round beads used for the back of the necklace.

Once again I was about to relearn the lesson that you should think through the engineering right from the beginning to the end before starting work... This time my lack of foresight and planning almost brought this project to an abrupt end, oops! The polyester chord being used for stringing is quite fine, finer than any of the coiled necklace ends I had but too fat to fit both threads through a clam shell hole.  A bit of a hiatus whilst I looked for a solution. Eventually I settled on making my own very narrow diameter coil using 0.8mm silver plated wire and the wire coiling gizmo I'd acquired over the summer. Two minutes work and I had a couple of spring ends, so easy I should do this more often!  Finally a simple lobster clasp secures the piece round the wearers neck.

All that remained was to take some photo's so my work could be published in the challenge album and to wear the necklace itself! Check out the album on Facebook to see some fabulous pieces of jewellery from everyone taking part.

Helping Hand

The non-working threads stuck down

 Don't you sometimes wish you had someone around to hold things whilst you use both hands to work on a tricky bit of jewellery?

I found myself in this situation when working on piece of bead weaving. Having created a seed bead loop to attach the threads to a pendant I needed to keep the tension on the loop whilst working on the bead weaving for one side of the necklace. My solution - stick the pair of threads that would eventually become the other side of the necklace to the worksurface.

Having adapted a project from a magazine I wasn't entirely certain how long the side I'd beaded first needed to be so, rather than finish it off with a crimp and one half of a clasp, I again resorted to sticky tape to hold the ends whilst I worked the other side. It took me a couple of tries to find the right position to stick the threads down to ensure I could comfortably work on the second part.

Once the beading was complete on both sides it was simple to hold the piece at my neck in front of a mirror and find that I needed to remove several pattern repeats to achieve the right length. I was quite relieved to have used tape rather than a crimp!

You can see the completed necklace here

Seasonal Challenge

This months MJ Challenge is to produce a piece of jewellery based around the main theme of Christmas, or one of the other themes or projects in Issue 32 of the magazine. So either a unique creation, or a piece based on one of the featured projects could be entered.

I decide to mix and match basing my entry on the cross-weave technique project (MJ page 69) but using Christmassy shiney red glass beads and a rhodium plated flower pendant that looks a little like a poinsettia. By using slightly smaller beads than those originally specified the result is a open lacey collar. The interspersed seed beads are silver foil lined clear glass which just add to the sparkle. All that's needed now is an outfit to wear it with over the Christmas season!

If you'd like to enter the challenge yourself then click here for more details. It closes on November 30th, overseas entries welcome.

Handmade Thursday...

..or any other day in my case but as Thursday is the last day before the weekend here in Dubai and a day when not much happens in my otherwise busy schedule I usually get more time to be creative. So when I stumbled across White Lily's blog and her Handmade Thursdays I couldn't resist sharing it with you nor posting something from me!


Today has been no exception in the extending chain of Thursdays so far in 2011, some further work on an as yet unfinished silver clay peapod pendant this morning. Then I also fired and burnished a couple of tiny squiggly square bits of clay ready for some future earrings, made two necklaces and a saucepan of vegtable soup and that was just my mornings efforts.

The first necklace was my entry in a challenge (see today's previous post) whilst the necklace pictured above is made from some beads I found amongst a huge second hand lot I bought on eBay a few months ago. These ''beads'' (they are not exactly round) are big chunks of pink resin, some clear and some frosted. Surprisingly for their size they weigh very little. I've teamed them up with some gold-coloured, wavy plastic spacers, 60cms of fancy cream giftwrap chord, a couple of smaller gold-coloured metal beads with large holes and a gold-coloured toggle fastening. The latter was bought in Texas when I was there last year. It was also an opportunity to practise some knots rather than using jump rings or other mechanical means to join components together!

If you want to have a go at something like this, here is how I assembled it.

• First wrap some sticky tape tightly round either end of the chord to stop it fraying as you thread it through the beads. Double up the chord and thread both ends through the chunky beads adding a gold spacer after each one, I alternated the frosted and clear beads. 
• Use a sheetbend to join the ends of the chord together and apply a little clear nail varnish or superglue to hold the knot firm. Adjust the chord so that the knot sits close to one of the end beads and when you hold it up by the two loops the central bead is in the middle. 
• Next thread on a few more spacers to cover the knot on one side, add a metal bead. Then add spacers and a metal bead to the other side to match. 
• Taking the doubled chord tie a series of three overhand knots close to the beads on either side to hold everything in place (more if you need to shorten the necklace length), then push each loop through the eye in the fastening and pull over the fastening to create a larkshead knot.

One Pink Chunks or is that Punk Chicks necklace!

For more on Handmade Thursdays click on the button below

New Year, New Necklaces

A belated Happy New Year to all!

I've been away in the UK renewing my passport as since my last post we've relocated to Dubai and with less than 6 months to run on said passport they wouldn't issue my residency. Anyway I'm back, completed the unpacking as well as finding time to make some necklaces.

This black and white one (left) was inspired by something pretty I spotted in Bentalls, Kingston (who have a lovely selection of vintage pieces by the way) made with crystal rondals and antique copper wire. I loved the way beaded headpins were threaded through parallel necklace chains to fan out round the wearer's neck. My version is slightly simpler as there is only one chain but reminds me of ancient Greek designs with the monchrome beads and the spirals. 

This choker (right) is made from recycled glass beads and copper rings combined with some aqua coloured twizzle wire and a few mock antique-copper beads (they are actually plastic!). Twizzle wire is funky spiral wire mesh that is hollow to you can thread lengths on tiger tail to make interesting "chains". The copper rings are part of a stash of various coloured metal rings I now have, purchased as a sales bargain necklace from Tie Rack (also in Kingston upon Thames, UK). A few pounds bought me three necklaces made from lots of metal components; chains, rings and more in various colours. There will be more recycled metal I'm sure shortly as amongst my purchases were a collection of dark, almost black textured metal rings.

Whilst in the UK I drove down to Devon to visit some family and on the way home made a detour to the Craft4Crafters event in Exeter. It was my first such show and I was amazed how crowded it was - are all the women in the SW making cards, knitting, quilting, embroidering, making jewellery? It was good to see that home crafts are not dead! Anyway I made a few purchases (shhh don't tell my husband) and came away with a selection of twizzle wire from the Crazy Wire Company plus a few texture plates and a book. The latter two items related to a new interest - silver clay - more in a later post.

The blue chain necklace pictured left is another bit of fakery - all the blue beads are plastic "turquoise"! The chains were recovered from one of my sales bargain necklaces (see above) and I was able to crimp the thinest one to keep the small beads arranged around it using some interesting heavier duty textured crimps. It all goes to show that pretty baubles need not be expensive.

I recently read an article about Lina Baretti, a Corsican jewellery maker who made stunning pieces for top fashion designers like Chanel and Schiaparelli (World of Interiors, Feb 2011). Her elegant pieces often used cork, ribbon, feathers and simple glass beads.  You can see some pictures of her work in Maia Adams blog on the same article here.

And finally a birthday present for my sister, made just before I left for the UK. Glass lampies and flower charms from South Africa, some silver plated chain, glass leaves and a pretty dragon fly charm make for a sparkling spring-like necklace to cheer up winters gloom.