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.

Jewellery Design - the process?

I picked up some lovely shells on the beach at the yacht club recently. They seemed quite exotic to my British eye all swirly and spiky so I wanted to make some jewellery with them. But how, with what? There were no convenient holes to add a jump ring to or thread some chord through. For a week or so all the shells I'd gathered sat on my kitchen worktop and I simply admired them each time I put the kettle on. Some were shiney orange as if varnished others rough with barnacles but my favourite of all remained the white spikey ones. From a brief trawl of the web I believe they are some kind of "Murex" but shell indentification is not my forte. They are pretty however and I wanted to wear them. What could I do that would serve as a permanent reminder of my time in Bahrain (which is rapidly coming to an end) and which would compliment my wardrobe?

Earrings? There wasn't a matched pair of shells and my favourite ones were anyway far too spiney to be comfortable suspended under my ears, close to the neck. Bracelet? Too fragile. Pendent on a necklace... that seems right but what would show them off best? The design process is a funny one. Part inspiration and part perspiration.

First I needed to suspend my shell and was reminded of a email from one of the beading magazine publishers I received a month or so ago where an awkward shaped stone was wrapped in wire to make a pendant. I looked it up decided it wasn't really what I wanted and instead made a gentle spiral of thin 1mm gauge brass wire round a fat marker pen leaving plenty of spare wire at either end. This fitted over my shell with a bit of easing and teasing to fit the wire round and over the spikes. The soft wire opened up too much though and the fragile shell nearly landed on the tiled floor. for security I fashioned a U in one end of the wire and slipped it into the tight curl at the bottom of the shell, a few minutes of further fiddling and the rest of the wire curled round and up following the swirls of the shell and cumulating in a neat twisted loop. I had my pendant.

Inspired by my sucess with the pendant I dug through my stash of beads and ended up making two other necklaces with beads I uncovered before I hit on the right combination of colours and textures to suit my shell! I left the shell and various selections of potential beady companions on a tray over night, pored over it again whilst eating my breakfast and eventually in the afternoon made my choice. Pale round wooden beads interspersed with darker rice shaped beads also in wood. All threaded on tiger tail with a pale brown ribbon fastening, hinting at driftwood but so much smoother. Just right for a beach find but I'm still not sure I understand the thought processes that result in a pleasing design.