Rediscovered - seed beads

Seed beads have been with me since I was a little girl. You grow up and forget about them. Suddenly you want them again, for a collage work or enticing bead embroidery and lastly for jewellery. Making pieces in the French beaded flower technique is something wonderful to learn, but translating this to jewellery is quite challenging.

Today I will show you just one of the pieces I just made - others will follow because the muse bit me!

More Variations

Okay, I said I would still play around with more variations. The blue set is an upside down version of the previous blue I posted. My daughter says it reminds her of the Eiffel Tower!
This pink and champagne set is the same wrap but with an additional overlay.
Now, while Mei was working on her square, beautifully adorned with beads, I made this diamond shape using silver and pink. But I am not too happy with it, because after wrapping the silver first from right to left I had to wrap the pink from left to right to give me this design. So there is a height difference where the two colours meet and they look like holes! Have to work on that.
In this oval pendant I first wrapped burgundy wire around every second coil, then overlaid it with silver in the alternating coils. This looks much better in person, changing the colours as you move. I will try this with three colours!

But now I have to concentrate on developing different frames to be able to show the more intricate patterns of the original string art.

Variations on a theme

After posting the first set of wire string art I really got bitten by the bug to try variations which would show the beauty of the patterns. Now I am getting carried away by the endless possibilities.

The first is done in navy/light blue with a bead to match the design.
Instead of using the coil I decided to make this zig zag shape to hold the wraps. Here I used three layers to add to the structure. They do not show as such because I used the same colour wire, but I like the result.
More playing around with frames to hold the wraps. For this I used roundnose pliers to shape the coils, fairly small, so in a way they act like the nails used in the original string art from decades ago.

I like these variations, but will still work more on them for some refinement! What do you think?

String Art in Wire

The last few days, on one of the groups I belong to, saw a lively discussion about Peruvian Thread Earrings. Looking at pictures they reminded me of string art which was quite popular in the late 70s - early 80s. But that was done in nails. Yikes. no good for jewellery. 

Through a link provided I found Ganutell, an ancient art from Malta which is identical to the Peruvian Thread Art which again is identical to the string art of 30 years ago. I am sure that further research will bring up more sources.

When string art was popular I made loads of pictures to adorn my wall and even taught it to anyone interested, but this was a challenge to me! I felt that thread in jewellery might fade or disintegrate too quickly, so I wanted to use wire. My first attempt was made with 28g wire for the wrapping which became very bulky. Then I tried 30g wire which works beautifully.

The picture of this attempt is above. Now it remains to figure out layering of different colours and patterns. More will come for sure.

Necklace Sets

At last! Finally I discovered that I had actually edited the pictures but did not resize them suitable to the web. So I spent the whole day doing that, including some more cropping, and giving each a name. Quite time consuming - the initial file was 153MB!

The first set is a euro 4-1 weave

with Swarovski AB rondelles

and Dorado crystals, done in goldplated wire.

Next is a herringbone 

weave on beautiful 12mm pearls interspersed with Swarovski crystals, also done in goldplated wire.

European 4 in 1

Herringbone Weave

Below you see a byzantine

weave with mother of pearl coin beads and a carnelian as focal point.

The focal in the next set 

is V-shaped in two directions: head on view as well as from the side, filled with assorted Swarovski crystals and other beads. The wire used is copper 20g and the chain is a butterfly weave.

Last but not least is a variation on the byzantine weave for the focal and plain for the necklace. For this I used champagne craft 

wire with olivine Swarovski crystals.

Byzantine Weave

And when you think

that the layout in your 

post is what you are 

going to see on the

blog, you are wrong!

Trying to describe 

each item as it appears

seems to be futile,

because afterwards

all is in disarray!

How do others do it?

You see a picture

and the caption below

it,  again and again.

So, what am I doing 

wrong? I think I

need help!!! 

Byzantine Variant

Pendants

Here are two new styles of pendant, that is new for me!. The first one is a faceted glass cabochon on which I tried my first ever netted bezel. I think it turned out quite well. The wire used is 20g and 28g  copper and the cab is just 1.8 x 1.4cm.

The second was a bit of a challenge because of it's
asymmetry. The stone is a beautiful tigereye, different in pattern on each side. So I decided to keep the wrap very simple and made it a reversible pendant to show off the beauty of the stone all around. Now that I have done it once I am sure others will follow.

I also tried to upload some necklace sets as mentioned in an earlier post but it seems I have to re-edit them to a smaller size. ......so hopefully you will see them next time!

More pendants

This pendant was made in copper wire e-wrap with a picture jasper and Swarovski crystals.  And one day I will figure out why this post decided to be underlined!!!

Sometimes the intricacies of the net are simply too muchGrrrh.

Another filigree pendant in silverplated wire with malachite.

Yesterday I uploaded three pendants but this one refused to show up. It is a beautiful 12mm pearl wrapped in silverplated wire, topped with Swarovski crystals.

Pendants

Since my knee is behaving in a more agreeable way, my brain too is back in functioning mode. Therefore I was able today to take pics of my most recent pendants. I don't know why this happens, but if I get inspired to make one, many others want to be made! It often means I do only one particular type of jewellery for a whole week or more before that particular obsession leaves me! I wonder if this happens to other jewellery makers?

Now to the latest pictures!

Last week I was busy making chainmaille bracelets, and when I was tired of that I turned to amethyst and citrine. I still need to improve in photography, but here are the results:


I have always wanted to do something 3dimensional in wire wrapping and my brain just throws ideas and pictures  at me willy-nilly, but I never "saw" what could be done. Also I hardly ever sketch, unless I have a very concrete idea in my head. But after seeing the work of Huan Pham, which I showed in my last post, I decided to try my hand. And to my surprise the result was quite pleasing. Of course I cannot and will not copy outright, and how could I, since no details were given. So I just came up with this: 19g and 30g champagne wire encasing a marble.

Now the marbles are an issue because they belong (or belonged) to my daughters when they were little and now they all want one like this as a keepsake, forbidding me to use any for any other purpose whatsoever!!!

Seems I have to find my own marbles or other undrilled objects which are suitable, if I want to continue with this design.

Yesterday I  saw unbelievable eye candy! Through one of the forums I belong to I found the blog of an extremely talented wire jewellery artist. When I saw his work my jaw dropped, my eyes bulged and all my skin was tingling. Believe me, I have seen outstanding work before (not that I can do any of it yet) but this guy is by himself "one of a kind". If you are interested here is his blog: http://huanpham.blogspot.com

I will try and show you some of what he does, just to entice you.