All about jewellery making

Today I am showing a necklace that I made for my Mum with stock from my bead shop.  I was very pleased with this combination of beads - the necklace includes quite a variety.  The pendant itself is russian jade and this particular example has very beautiful markings and colouration. 

The beads accompanying the pendant are green moss agate, hematite and freshwater pearl.  I used Bali silver bead caps and small Bali silver and hematite beads to create visual interest in terms of profile, shape and size.  The clasp is a Bali style pewter toggle. 

For this type of necklace I use bead stringing wire such as Acculon because it hold the beads nicely and is strong and I attached the pendant to the main body of the necklace by using a homemade headpin.  This type of headpin is very simple to make by forming a straightforward spiral at the end.  I used a wire-wrapped loop at the top for extra security.

I have just finished making this set of Christmas jewellery for myself to wear over the festive period.  The pattern is from the latest Bead and Button magazine on p.48 and is called ‘Crystal Showers’.  I made the earrings by completing just one unit of the design before attaching them to the ear hooks.  The technique is right angle weave and is quite easy once you get the hang of the pattern.
 
You can probably see from the picture that the crystals I used are rather uneven.  These are some I am using up as they were to be stock for my shop but I do not consider them good enough quality to sell.

I chose red and gold as my colour scheme as I think these are especially Christmassy colours and will add a bit of glitter to my outfit.

It is unlikely that I will get another opportunity to post here before Christmas so I hope you all have a fabulous holiday and a joyful new year.

This micro macrame necklace was made following a pattern created by Elaine Lieberman in Katie DuMont’s book, ‘The New Macrame’. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Here is a close up of the front of the necklace.  The thread that I used was 1mm waxed cotton jewellery making cord and it was the perfect stiffness for holding the pattern well.

I liked the design so much that I decided to add one of the special dragonfly toggles that I sell in my bead shop.  I don’t usually use up shop stock on my own pieces but I wanted something befitting to finish the necklace with.

Elaine Lieberman has a website showcasing her own micro macrame work and she has also written some very good tutorials on how to get started with macrame.  Do pop over for a visit.  The website is here:  http://www.elainecraft.com/

If you would like to find out some more about micro macrame I have listed some other websites in a previous post here.

This is my version of the ‘Crystal Clear’ bracelet featured in the Feb 2007 edition of Bead and Button.  The beads I have used are faceted glass and 6mm mother of pearl.  I used 18 and 20 gauge silver-plated wire to make the jump rings.  Once I had completed the main part of the bracelet I discovered that I did not have a suitable clasp so I created my own from wire.  I wanted to take the design further to make a set and here’s what I came up with:

The centrepiece of the necklace follows the bracelet design with the beads on the uppermost edge only.  It was necessary to adjust the design in this way as the original bracelet pattern was too heavy and stiff to hang nicely.  To create a stable centrepiece that could be attached to the chain of the necklace I used 28 gauge wire to thread the beads finishing it off with a wrapped loop at either end.  The rest of the necklace chain is based on the chainmaille design from the Bead and Button bracelet pattern.  I made the triangular headpins and added small pearlised seed beads before attaching them to the centrepiece.

I wanted the earrings to reflect the same design but it was not easy to translate it to something suitable to be worn as an earring.  Each element needed to be included but without making them too cumbersome.  I started with the chainmaille motif of 2 large central jump rings with 2 pairs of the smaller jump rings on other side.  By creating 2 eyepins I could then thread on the blue faceted glass beads on each side of the central jump rings.  The eyepins were then joined at the top by a further jump ring enabling the design to be attached to the earwire.  The triangular headpin dangles were joined to a chain of jump rings attached to the centre of the design and the wire loops at the base of each eyepin.

Russian leaf stitch lariat 

1.  Russian leaf stitch lariat

This Russian leaf stitch lariat has been made from a pattern devised by Varvara.

The leaves are made in Russian leaf stitch which is basically peyote stitch created in a leaf shape.  Here is a close up of the Russian leaf stitch:

 
2.  detail showing the Russian leaf stitch

The ‘berries’ are a mix of hematite, green moss agate, green aventurine and mother of pearl.  Most of the seed beads are Toho which are good for their uniform shape.

The lariat is very fluid and hangs very naturally when worn.  This is not so easy to convey when photographing it!