Week 23: Not on theme (cold connections only piece)
This is a Jasper, set in sterling silver…this piece uses only cold connections. The chain is made with fine silver wire and green fresh water pearls.
Melissa Muir – Week 23
I had this little strawberry quartz that you could see through really well. I wanted to have something interesting behind it and decided to pierce a small design to show through from the back. This turned out really well. You can see how much the design is magnified and it just looks really cool.
week23-Foxtail
Here are three foxtail bracelets, my latest endeavor! The left side is the first attempt. 18 gauge 13 mm rings from Monster Slayer, already soldered. Very challenging, but very cool, good medium sized. The middle one is 20 gauge fine silver 8.5mm, fused, with 4 spacer beads throughout. The right bracelet is also 20 gauge fine silver, fused 8.5mm rings and then formed. This is a great, flexible bracelet. I plan to do this with more options as well. I spent yesterday doing alot of drawing for some metal work, so today maybe some cutting, filing and soldering will be in my future! Hey, can I count this for three weeks 🙂
As always comments welcome
Verts
You all know by now, I have a thing for all shades of green! This is another bead I have had in my stash for a long time. I actually had it wrapped "briolette" style and just hung on a chain, but decided it was boring, so this time I went to Delia Stone’s lace needlework tutorial to figure out how to embellish it.
The necklace also features moss agate tubes embellished with a herringbone wrap, tiny aventurine heishi, balinese and Hill Tribe silver.
~Melissa
Week 23 – The Boss
I couldn’t figure out who the boss should be… until I got this huge 30 mm flawless crystal round. This was definitely the boss of all stones!! It’s my great aunt’s ‘crystal ball’ she uses it for doing her yoga meditations and she wanted to be able to hang it on her neck. She wanted it to be trapped safely enough that it wouldn’t come out when she went hiking to waterfalls but uncovered enough so that she could still do her meditation exercises with it. This was the first time I made something with an undrilled stone, so it was quite a challenge for me. I did a simple caged bead, added some flair to the top with some wrapping and spirals, and then I secured the cage wires from moving apart by weaving some silver tiny beads (which you can’t see in the pic very well) It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to photograph, so sorry for the lack of details!
The Boss…The Pearl of Great Price
The peach blister pearl was in great form directing all of the players. I didn’t think the blisters were nicely formed but the reverse side was gorgeous so the blisters are on the underneath side. The potato pearls were the right size for this large cab and twinkling crystals snuggled in between. I bought the clasp a year ago having no plans for it and it fits nicely in this design. The prong setting is one taught me by Metallique…Robbie Ward in the Obsessions tutorial.
I’ve been told since a child that pearls stood for tears. I suppose when the oyster discovers that irratating grain of sand it does shed a few tears. Oh, but what beauty the nachre reveals when the oyster 
is finished with its creation. Same thing with us….if we let God have those challenges that cause us tears, He can make beauty for ashes.
Jean Power- week 23- Geometric 2-9-1
I have been busy working on the instructions for my Geometric Beadwork Series and part of that has led me to actual finish some of my samples and UFOs.
This bracelet has been sitting with clasp half attached just waiting for me to add some more length and the other side of the clasp for at least 18 months so it was nice to finish it!
Jean Power
www.jeanpower.com
Green Corn Feather
This past weekend my family and I were out on the Porch Creek NDN Reservation for the annual Green Corn celebration. Because I was on my moon cycle, I was not able to participate fully. When it is your ‘time’ as a woman, you cannot touch the other people on the grounds because your body is in the process of purifying. You also are not able to touch the food, not even for preparation purposes. This left a great burden on the shoulders of my MIL because she was left alone with the task of cleaning out the old fire in the family camp and preparing it for the new fire from the ceremonial square AND doing all of the cooking and preparation for the men in our camp (for three out of four days). I was feeling rather guilty about leaving her with all of this work, but it was not like I had much choice in the matter. Thank goodness that her son Mark came down from New York and brought his girls. Christen, Mark’s oldest daughter did a lot of women’s work to make up for my inability to work. She was a tremendous help to Mimi (my MIL) and I cannot imagine Mimi having had to do it all alone. Thank goodness for Christen!
I found myself trying to think of an appropriate award for Kristen (and her sister Anna – who helped a great deal with my one year old daughter – a MUCH appreciated task) and of course my mind went to jewelry, because I can make that. 🙂 As I struggled to think of something that would really resonate with their memories of the weekend, I remembered that sometimes as a reward to the male children and the men for contributions to their community (usually in the form of labor and/or performing certain tasks imperative to ceremonial functions), they might be given a feather. This is a special acknowledgement and a great honor. This gave me the brilliant idea of presenting Kristen and Anna with FEATHER pendants to acknowledge them for their contributions in the family camp. This is the first of two feathers. This one is for Kristen. Kristen also went through Green Corn this year, having fasted from midnight Friday until dinner on Saturday and having stayed up continuously from Saturday morning to noon on Sunday entirely by her own choice. She danced around the fire all night right along side everyone else. This is no easy task and I know that everyone, including myself, is very proud of her for this accomplishment. She is certainly on her way to becoming a woman.
I decided not to oxidize this piece because I am only putting it on a cord and I assume that she will likely switch it to a sterling chain later down the line. I would not want the feather to look ‘dirty’ next to the bright silver of a new chain, so I opted to leave the feather bright for her.
You can read more about Green Corn on my blog, and find more pictures of this pendant and of our weekend. All to come as soon as I catch my breath and recover from the weekend. 🙂 http://deliastonesstudio.wordpress.com/
Edit notes: I was asked by the meko of the grounds to edit my post to remove some information that he felt was too personal for publication, hence the change in my journal entry.
The Boss-Copper but more than Wire-Week 23
The Boss for me became Copper…..not just wire but tubing. It’s been sitting on my bead table in parts and pieces for about a month. After finally making the jump rings, I linked them in groups of three and used them to attach each section. I love the bone focal bead and it fit perfectly over the texturized copper tubing. Wrapped copper wire on each side of the focal bead and added a couple of small carnelian beads. Small links that I made were used to attach the clasp.. I had a great time with this one and it really helped me improve on my coiling skills and making jump rings.
Kitty
The Boss
This is the boss in my gem supply, a 22mm Chrysophrase, so I just gave it a little wrap. I think I’ll do something with it later. I’m cheating again! www.Ebbdesigns.com
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