Huggie Loop Stripe Earrings

I still bead at night, but it's a bit of a struggle to be inspired to make jewelry anymore since I'm no longer working in clothing retail. When I was in that job, patterns and color changes were abundant and what I wore to work mattered. Now what matters is my measuring, math and product knowledge, which, turns out, is a lot more fun for me. So, my jewelry-making struggles unless I have an event I'm planning an outfit for, such as Abigail's Wedding this past spring (which I created her hair pieces and new jewelry for myself).

In July I ended up planning an outfit to wear to the Sad Summer Festival. It was going to be hot and Jen got pit tickets. So, I had an outfit planned with my black Vans shortalls, closed-toed Chucks, and a loose tee. I had a color theme because I love my yellow 70's-look stripe platform chucks and I have a new yellow 15/0 seed bead I've been dying to use. 

I kept in mind being in the pit while panning these earrings and I didn't want them to dangle much, if at all. The pit usually involves lots of pushing and managing crowd surfers so dangly things can easily get caught and ripped off. I decided to make closed loops integrating the post and earnut as part of the design. The first pair I made I just focused on the colors in the shoes. They weren't quite what I had in mind, so I made a shorter "huggie" style pair with a black base and the yellow that I wanted to use so badly.

I finished and tried on both pairs while I was getting ready to go and really perferred the second pair, both in the short length and color. They worked really well for the outfit, and the pit (although we ended up on the side that didn't have the circle pit or crowd surfers).

I made a third pair while I was playing with some neon green beads I had gotten in Minneapolis last year which have a fun 80's vibe. I like that this style is simple and understated but has the pops up color and allws me to still play with color, plus they're easy to wear to work. These are headed to the Lansing Art Gallery for their Michigan Made Holiday show (Opening Reception is November 9th, 2023)