More jewellery-making has been happening here. I’ve wrapped a gemstone slice with wire, strung a bag of tiger-eye pieces onto wire to make a necklace, and joined more spacers together to make a bracelet:

I like the tiger-eye one, but the other two aren’t me so I’ll see if friends want them.

I made more sections for my green bead necklace, then more section necklaces. I’d already added a chain to the black bead necklace to mimic the structure. Next I made a purple version with two options for the short section:

I’m now gathering beads to make black and red version. Or a black and red version.

But I can feel my interest in making jewellery is waning, now. I’ve been weaving the runner in pod-cast length sessions. (Not even halfway done yet. About a third, I reckon.) There’s been some work on the knitters loom, too, but that’ll go in a separate post. I want to weave the summer and winter placemats on the Katie loom, and for that I need to clear the craft room table of jewellery things.

A friend of mine makes really cool customisable necklaces and when I asked if she’d make me one if I provided the materials, she agreed. So when I saw a multi-strand bracelet at a destash market containing lots of beads I liked, I knew it was a great opportunity to have that necklace made. The result was fabulous…

What I like about this necklace idea is that the main part can be a shorter necklace on it’s own, and the short section could be a bracelet. I could even clip on a pendant. Since the spirit of the design is that you can swap out sections to suit your mood, I got out my jewellery-making box to see if I could make some from the supplies I had. I found that I needed to order more bead stringing materials, like crimps and jump rings and a pearl doubler.

Well, if I was going to order jewellery supplies, I’d better look in the bag of unfinished jewellery projects to see what I needed for them. Some I could do straight away, so once the order was made I started working, and soon had a few completed pieces:

When the supplies arrived, I finished more:

I started making swap-out sections for the new necklace, but got stalled because the beading wire and crimps I bought were waaaaay too fine, and the bead mat I’d bought was too small for the longer lengths. So while I waited for a new mat, I had a big clean out of my supplies.

You see, I’d learned something while finishing all those projects: embroidery isn’t the only craft I have to rethink post eye surgery. My new eyes really don’t cope with smallness. I made a huge mistake in my ordering, buying that really fine beading wire and crimps. I simply couldn’t see the crimp holes or the ends of the wire, and was reduced to moving the wire in the vague direction of the bead and hoping to eventually thread it. Yes, I could use a magnifying glass, but when I did that with embroidery I just got a headache.

I’m not interested in craft that is uncomfortable. I know now that small beads are out and soft lighting is vital. Nearly all the seed beads, some larger beads I didn’t care for, beading needles and thread, and the mistake purchases, went into a bag to destash. Then I reorganised the rest. Since I’d finished most of the unfinished projects and a few new ones, my jewellery-making box suddenly had room to spare.

Which may not last for long. Small is out, which means big is in. And refashioning second hand is pretty much my thing these day. A few days ago I bought some necklaces and bracelets with medium to large beads and charms from a charity shop to cannibalise.

Because this isn’t about giving up a craft, but taking it in new directions.

Which is why I’ve also got out the silver metal clay kit I haven’t had the courage to play with yet and started playing with that.

Sometimes it takes being a bit fed up with a project to push it through to the end. In this case, I had painted a couple of pictures within the frames, but I wasn’t liking most of them and had lost enthusiasm. A few weeks ago I decided I wanted to wear the necklace to an event, which meant finishing it quickly. The idea came to paint all the inserts black. I had a vague idea that I could then paint skulls and other bones in them later, but I like the result so I’m sticking with it for now.

A late jewellery-making post, delayed because this was a gift and I kept forgetting to give it to the recipient…

Ages ago I bought some colourful Tagua Nuts, otherwise known as ‘vegetable ivory’, and made this necklace:

While I liked it, I never wore it. Mostly because it didn’t go with anything I was wearing. It was dismantled, and I was considering putting it and the other tagua nut pendants among the jewellery supplies I’m culling, but when I put them all together, I realised the colour combination reminded me of a friend. What could I make that used all pendants in the one piece?

A bracelet, it turns out. A charm style bracelet:

It makes a very satisfying clatter, this one. Unlike the one I made for myself a year ago, which makes a wonderful tinkle. Sound is an under-appreciated aspect of jewellery. I’ve bought pieces because they made a lovely noise. Maybe I should consider other, more deliberate musical jewellery designs next time I get the itch to make some.

I’ve been watching the Classic Car Show of SBS and, probably only because I’m in jewellery making mode, I’ve been fascinated by Jodie Kidd’s. In one episode she was wearing very long chain earrings that just about brushed her collarbones. I haven’t work earrings in years. There hasn’t been much point since my current haircut hides my lobes. But what if I made them long enough that the sparkly ends dangled below my hair?

Of course, I had to make a necklace to match.

I seem to be at the end of the jewellery-making twitch. There’s something I’d still like to make, but after that I think I’ll pack it all away again.

At the moment the dining table is covered in my carved and commercial stamp collection and my head is full of ideas for making greeting cards.

Twitch!

Paul wanted to go to the tip shop the other day, after a friend said there were some vintage cameras there. I tagged along, and found myself trying to untangle some necklaces. I wanted some of them for the beads, but boy were they tangled! I wound up buying a fistful of beaded strands because it was easier than separating them. That and a beaded bracelet cost me $2.

Once home, I washed everything, pulled apart the bracelet and untangled the necklaces. Turned out that the reason half of the strands of beads wouldn’t separate was because they were joined with a small circle of beads to make one necklace. I liberated them, but got to thinking about how they, and two other strands, went really well together.

So I started exploring how I could hold them together. I tried this snap clip first:

Works, but is a bit ‘industrial’. What I wanted was a ring that could open and close. The next morning, as I was putting the clip away, I noticed my bag of old buckles. Particularly a fancy one I’d always wanted to try incorporating into jewellery. So tried it:

It works and looks better than I expected. The tongue is not inclined to hinge open, even when there’s no pressure from the strands holding it down.

The whole exercise has had me thinking about jewellery-making again. I did a pile of it around this time last year. First I had a critical look at the costume jewellery I have already, finding a few pieces in my collection I wanted to cull or alter. Then I looked in my supplies case, reminding myself about projects I didn’t get around to last year.

So I got playing, and had some winners:

This is a re-de-refashion, or something. I liked the original bracelet…

…but the crimps holding the beads in place were scratchy. So a couple of years ago I did this instead:

But I never really liked the result. I preferred the look of the first bracelet better. So this time I remade it using beads instead of crimps, threading the tiger tail through them twice to keep them from moving:

I made this a couple of years ago:

Then later made a matching bracelet using a washer for the closure. I didn’t love it, and I was going to simply cull the necklace. But looking at the washer closure gave me an idea:

I’ve also tweaked two more necklaces – including one that must be 15 years old. The ideas are flowing. The visual diary has some new sketches in it. Looks like I’ve tipped over into one of those short-term craft obsessions again. That’s fine. It never lasts more than a month or so, and I’m having fun.