Ooh, pretty...

... or at least I think so.

I hope some other people think so too as these are some of the first jewelry pieces I will be listing on my Etsy shop.



Red glass lariat necklace.

Jasper drop earrings.

Black and white lampwork earrings.

Turquoise lampwork earrings.

Biwa pearl and seed bead necklace.

Lavender and pearl pin.

This next pin is not for sale, it's mine (all mine)...

Ocean green and silver pin.

So if you're ever looking for just the right pin to fasten a hand-knit, or a gift for a friend, please come and visit me on Etsy...

Reworking

I couple of posts ago, I showed a photo of a back-to-school necklace and shawl pin set I made for my sister. The pin I was very pleased with - that's what I worked on first and the idea had been fermenting in my head for a while. The necklace was an afterthought really - I was enjoying myself too much to stop and it just happened. The thing was, I was never quite sure about it so I sent it to my sister with a note saying that if it didn't work for her - wrong length / wrong style etc just to send it back and I'd rework it... And this is just what has happened... And I'm so pleased that she sent it back because I'd been thinking about it a bit anyway, and I'm much happier with its second incarnation.


Apologies for the photograph - it was (gasp) too sunny in Glasgow to get a good photo showing the colours and the shapes.

This is the product of a couple of hours beading and crimping on Sunday morning while the Resident Radiologist was watching a DVD and playing on his new Wii...

I took out all the small seed beads and bugles and drastically reduced the number of larger seed beads. I also added in some lavender-dyed freshwater pearls I found in a local bead store and some fluorite rectangular tubes from the Scottish Bead Fair. The final arrangement has freshwater pearls (tiny white and larger lavender) on the shortest wire, fluorite tubes on the middle wire and a mixture of freshwater pearls (tiny white), fluorite beads and amethyst chips on the longest wire with a few glass seed beads covering the ends. All the findings are sterling silver and the wire is aculon.

I was enjoying myself so much a pair of earrings 'happened' before I knew what was going on!

I'm delighted with the new finished product and hope my sister will be too.

Stringing some ideas together...

... I've not really been knitting much lately, though I have finished a long-standing WIP which I'll blog about once I've taken some photos.

I have however been beading.

I've been feeling the urge to get the bead stash out for a while now and last weekend proved to be just the time.

It started with a shawl / cardigan pin I bought (in an unbent form) at Woolfest, which I shaped up with a spring bend (wound one and a half times round a pen) and embellished with bits of amethyst, a few pearls and some other purple and white beads I had lying around. I enjoyed that so much I wasn't quite ready for it to be over, so I got out some monofilament and before I knew it, I had a matching necklace...

These are going to be a back-to-school gift for my sister who's a teacher.

It didn't stop there though - I ripped out a necklace I made a while ago and remade it with a stronger support wire so that it sits better, and the dangles for a pair of earrings to match (I don't have any ear-wires to mount them on at the moment though).


I also made a simple memory-wire necklace with mixed seed beads and horn heshi discs...


a beach-comber style knotted necklace with some embroidery cotton...


And a macrame beaded bracelet.


This is all a bit of a build up for this weekend really. The Scottish Bead Fair is on in Perth on Sunday and I'm going for a little look round (though I'm going to have to take it easy as I've just come down with shingles so am feeling a little under the weather). Mostly I'm going to be browsing for stash and ideas, but I also have a little list.....