I always have a jewelry piece that I'm working on. Sometimes I get them done quickly because I can't put them down, sometimes I slog through a little bit at a time between other projects. this one I slogged through because when I wasn't at work, I was focused on the
River Terrace Church Installation. This piece wraps to be a long, medium or short necklace, or wraps multiple times to be a bracelet.
This inspiration for this piece was a new dress I picked up at
Grace Boutique in Old Town. I decided it was perfect for one of the weddings I have to go to this summer, but also I wanted to wear it to the
Capital City Film Festival Red Carpet event. When I started this piece, I pulled all the different colors of beads that would match the dress is 15's, 13's and 11's. My initial thought was to create this necklace in the St. Petersburg Chain Stitch (see below), but that was quickly scrapped. It had too much going on, the stitch needed to be smaller and simpler.
Simple stitching is not my forte, but with all the color options I could still give this piece a complex feel. 5 feet, 9 inches later with a vintage clasp from my grandma's old costume jewelry I came up with a smooth multicolored blend of seed beads with little leaf and pearl accents. This piece is very lightweight with a nice hang, almost like a very light rope.
You can barely see it in the above photo, but you can see the dress and how it didn't need a lot of extra pizazz with it's jewelry. Honestly, the cut of the dress on my is just ok, but I absolutely fell in love with the fabric and print of it, it's very pretty and comfortable.
I chose this length so that I could wrap it 2, 3 or 4 times and wear it from a choker to all different lengths. When it gets bothersome at work and I'm worried I'm going to snag it on something, I wrap it up to a choker or around my wrist.
Little Leaf Detail
Bracelet Pile
I'm just posting this now as a breather from finishing the huge
River Terrace Installation and getting ready to lecture and teach at the
Needlework and Textile Guild of Michigan next week to a sold-out workshop. I can't believe I got everything done the week of Film Fest between floorset at work (rearranging the entire clothing sales floor for the new month and new clothes), volunteering at the Film Fest and finishing and hanging the River Terrace piece. What a whirlwind!
Group Photo from CCFF. Film fest is always one of my favorite Lansing events,
this photo honors the pre-digital camera age where, due to Bryan's height,
his head always got cut off in photos.
