Idea

I went out to my studio this morning to fix a necklace which I bought yesterday and before I knew it, I'd made this.

The big pearl is yet to be stitched into the centre and I may yet change some things, but I'm pretty happy with my quick burst of inspiration. It's a couple of inches across, so quite a big burst of colour and texture.

I also need to decide about whether to string this on a twisted cord, or ribbon or chain. In the spirit of my quick inspiration, could I have some quick feedback please. 

Freeform Again

I've been out in the studio working on freeform wire and wool necklaces. Here's a close up of a couple of strands.

Wool, silk, cotton, wire and freshwater pearls . . . 

Ruffles to the Max

This crochet collar began with a bit of leftover wool. It was spindle-spun, hand-dyed Finn-Cashmere, so a rather special scrap. In my ongoing exploration of neck adornment possibilities I made a rough elipse. My next step was to add a few freshwater pearls. I wanted some matching seed pearls to finish it off, but there were none to be found. So it sat for a while. Then I dug out some hand-spun silk. It's usually a bit of a gamble to try to dye a matching shade, but I decided to try anyway. It worked! Today I stitched around the basic shape with the silk. Once that was done, it was time for adornment.

I endeded up with a mass of ruffles. I like ruffles. In this context I'm thinking of them as being like coral--a sea blue-green coral collar. It should be fun to wear in the coming cooler days.

Favourite

Here's a close up of one of the shawl pins I made recently.I must admit, it's my favourite and it's going to be hard to send it away. On the other hand, I get such a thrill when somebody chooses to buy something I've created and the only way that's going to happen is if I let it go. Hmmm, I guess that's a lesson for life!

Shawl Pins

I love variety in my work. I love to twist and embellish. These shawl pins are a good example of that. They are based on small eucalypt branches: a little more substantial than twigs as I need a nice solid core of hard wood. I carve them to shape, then embellish them with artists wire and freshwater pearls. They each have a base ring of clear plastic to keep them secure without detracting from their beauty.

This is how they look on display--because of their unique shapes, it's hard to get them to all "face the front and smile for the photo", but I think you get the idea.
Here are the pieces I've been working on recently:

I've whittled away at the basic shapes, now it's time to sand them smooth. Then comes the wire and pearls. The whittling and smoothing takes the longest time. Compared with that the wire wrapping is relatively quick, so I try to get a batch ready to go before I cover my big table with jewellry tools, pearls and semi-precious stones.