New Necklace at Mobilia Gallery

As part of my extremely busy week recently, I finished and delivered a necklace to Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge for their winter necklace exhibition. I wanted to create something that was similar in spirit to the one I made for their last necklace show, but without the wearability issues that plagued the last one. I came up with the idea of lowering the number of elements but increasing their individual complexity, which gives the necklace visual impact while also making it easier to wear. Below are some snapshots of the finished project. The opening reception will be on November 17th, and the show will be on view through December 28th.

Forged Wire Rings

After the recent craziness of my schedule, I just had to doodle around and make something new -- and I'm pretty happy with how it came out! I saw a lot of rings like this while we were in San Francisco and I love the idea. I took it a step further by oxidizing the copper after forming these rings, then buffing off parts of it to reveal the pink copper color. I love how every second in the liver of sulfur bath creates a slightly different tone in the copper -- it turns from gold to maroon to grey to blue-black, all in about 20 seconds (depending on the heat of the bath and wire, I believe). Unfortunately the color in these photos isn't great, but it should give a sense of the difference in color that happens after only a few seconds.

Bronze hue (only a few seconds in the liver of sulfur):

Maroon-pink shade (about 8 seconds):

Deep grey (more than 20 seconds; burnished afterwards to bring out some of the pink color):

Detail of the pattern:

Leafy Jewelry

When I first started making singed fabric jewelry, I tried making some leaves to go along with my flowers, but it never really worked as a form. Maybe it's because I've gotten better at controlling the results, but I was recently inspired to try again and this time had success. So far I've made two pairs of leaf earrings and a leafy, autumnal necklace. I hope to have some more on display at the Union Square Winter Craft Market tomorrow!

Sterling Silver Necklace

I finally completed a project that was about a month overdue -- a large necklace in the twiggy floral style for Mobilia Gallery's jewelry exhibit "Objects of Status, Power and Adornment". I used oxidized sterling silver wire, iolite beads (which are a shade of blue I can somehow tolerate!), faceted blue-grey glass beads from Toho Shoji in New York, and singed fabric flowers. I think the necklace took so long mainly because many of the techniques were new to me, since I don't usually work in silver. I also noticed that a lot of the chemicals involved (liver of sulfur to oxidize the silver wire, even the wax to polish and protect the oxidized wire) gave me headaches, so I couldn't do them very often or for long stretches. I don't know how metalsmiths manage! I suppose the draw is similar to working in the darkroom -- you have to go through long and tedious processes with smelly and often dangerous chemicals, but in the end something magic and luscious is created and you get to hold it in your hands.

Double-Strand Twiggy Necklace

I've been working on a prototype for a necklace that I'll eventually make in silver with semi-precious stones and glass beads. I'm a little tired of it because I've been working with the same form for a while, but what do you think?

Front:

Back (the little twiggy accents end up just at the back of the neck):

The chain is all handmade, by the way, which was another new experiment. I think the way it looks works well with the organic look of the links. It's also helpful because that way I can make chain to precisely match whatever wire I'm using.

Riveted Flower Cuff

Yesterday I made myself a cuff bracelet to add some "edge" to an outfit. I used some of my singed fabric flowers, but the bracelet still comes off as pretty tough! I've listed the bracelet on Etsy here.

Spring Green Earrings

I've been experimenting with new colors of fabric for my twiggy flower earrings. I'm really excited about these ones -- the combination of light green fabric and pearl beads makes me think of the first snowdrops of spring. I'll be rolling these out at SLAM at the Burren next weekend for their Easter-themed craft fair on April 23rd. Hope to see you there!

Crocheted Flower Necklace

After making some earrings with crocheted flowers (see this post), I wanted to experiment with using them for a necklace. They seem to "curl up" and get less flower-like over time, but it's still a very comfortable necklace. I challenged myself to make an asymmetrical design, and I think it worked out fairly well.

Dionysus Earrings

A long time ago I discovered that I could string seed beads onto wire and wind them up into little bunches of grapes. I made a few pins and started on a necklace, but found that it was too likely to get caught on things. I recently realized that the twiggy earrings I've been making would also work well with the grape motif, and tried making a couple. I think they turned out pretty well, but you'd definitely have to keep all hair and clothing clear of the adorable little tendrils.

Twiggy Floral Earrings

I started making these earrings as a slightly easier-to-wear alternative to my twiggy floral necklaces:

Recently I've been making more sparkly ones in the spirit of the snowy season. They've also gotten a little more elongated as I experiment with making them more twiggy and gnarled:

Unfortunately my stock is always fairly low, since they're very popular at craft fairs. I will have more at my next craft fair, which will be February 12th at the Burren in Davis Square. Stop by then to get inspired for Valentine's Day!

Mini Crocheted Flower Earrings

I started making these little earrings at my last craft fair. I had been crocheting flowers out of embroidery floss and thought I'd try making them into earrings. The flowers sort of flop around, but I think that's part of what I like about them. I want to try making some with a whole array of flowers. They're really light, and unlike the twiggy earrings they're not likely to catch on anything.

I've been making a lot more things lately besides these, but as most of them are for Christmas presents you'll just have to wait til after the holiday to see them!

Green Twiggy Necklace

I have been experimenting with different colors using the twiggy design from my original plum-colored necklace. I really like the way the dark wire works with this selection of iridescent and matte green beads. I also made matching earrings, which I think came out especially well.

Plum Twig Necklace

Yesterday before work I decided to make myself a new necklace. I'd been wearing my wire twig earrings lately, and thought it would be interesting to make a necklace in that technique that would incorporate the singed fabric flowers as well. I used annealed wire, which is dark, with pearlescent purple beads and a few sparkly glass beads. I like the asymmetry and the very organic shapes. I think I might try to make one in fall colors as well, for the season. Maybe in yellow and green, which with the black "branches" would look like linden trees in autumn.

Singed Fabric Flowers

I've seen many tutorials on making fabric flowers, and the multicolored creations I saw at Sew What recently inspired me to start making them myself. I found some remnants that were being thrown out and decided to experiment with them.

The technique I followed involved cutting circles from fabric and singing the edges (I used a candle) to make them curl and also seal the plastic fabric from fraying. Since I was using white fabric, at first I tried very hard to keep the fabric from taking on color from the candle smoke. However, that method doesn't allow the fabric to curl very much, and I discovered that if I dyed the fabric a little with tea (plastic materials don't really take up tea particularly well, but it was enough to make some difference) the slightly charred edges actually provided a nice contrast and a more organic look. Today I wore a necklace with a flower pendant;

 I also wore floral hairpins yesterday on a trip to the beach.

The "leaves" are small snips of leather remnants that I received from a handbag designer I met at Somerville Open Studios. Her bags are really amazing, and it was an incredibly thoughtful gift! I've been using the scraps to make cuffs in all colors, and will post when I've worked out some of the ideas I have for them.

Crocheted Lace Bracelet

I have been experimenting with freeform crocheting with embroidery floss and found an application that I enjoy. It's lacy but not overly so, and the colors are very spring.

I started by doing random and open crochet stitches in an approximately rectangular shape. I pinned the piece to an ironing board so it would settle into a rectangle and ironed over it several times to hold the shape.

Then I laced a piece of nylon ribbon through it. I originally intended the ribbon to be a base to tack the crochet to, but I discovered that the bracelet was easier to tie and had more dimension if I gathered the crochet a little and used the ribbon ends as a tie. I singed the knotted ends in a candle to make sure they don't unravel (that's always so annoying...)

In the end, it's a lot of steps but not a particularly difficult project, and I like the effect and the fact that each one will be unique.

New Rings

I made some paper beads out of a thicker magazine ad, and they're a little too big and fat to use in threes the way I've been making other paper bead rings, but they work very well solo. The process still takes a while but it's a bit less finicky when you only have to worry about positioning one bead. I'm thinking of varying the cage part to make it more interesting. I'm doing a lot of jewelry to prepare for an upcoming fair in Union Square -- more on that later!

Maroon Paper Necklace

I recently made a maroon-toned necklace that I really enjoy. I used pearlized glass beads at various intervals between the paper beads. I like them because they add a little weight and a different texture.

Necklace

I just finished a new necklace project. It's very time-consuming, but yet the result is really delicate. I'm not sure if I want to make more to sell because of that, although they are very sweet.

Leafy Wire-wrapped Rings

I've been a bit disappointed with my efforts to make wire-wrapped rings using the paper beads. Last night I experimented with making little sparkly leaves out of glass beads and twisted wire, giving a sort of sparkly halo effect to the top of the ring. I think they turned out nicely; the only issue would be that they will inevitably get stuck on everything. But they're adorable, and very spring-like. I will post them on Etsy once I have some better photographs.

Wire-wrapped Rings

I've wanted to make rings for a while, and recently thought I'd try some techniques to showcase my paper beads as rings.

My first attempt was just using one bead, but I abandoned that and started using groups of three beads, with the same wire-wrapping method. I tried stacking them, but found that they naturally fell into a more staggered pattern. I also tried flattening the coil into a band using pliers, which I really liked.

Unfortunately, that type seemed to look better on its own than on my hand, so I tried stacking the beads for a more symmetrical look.

However, that made for a ring that was too wide and uncomfortable to wear. I returned to my previous design, but without the wrapped cage part, since I wanted to highlight the graceful snuggling of the focal beads.

I like how the photo turned out, but I thought the ring itself looked a little too handmade. Then I tried holding both staggered rings next to each other and realized they made a pretty leaf pattern, which I then tried to replicate by using five staggered beads instead of three.

It's difficult to effectively photograph these leaf rings because the motif wraps around. They're very sweet though, and also comfortable. I've got to do a bit more work to smooth out the technique, but overall I like what I came up with.