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Held Captive – Poor Beads, Oh My….
How tragic for these beautiful, yet simple, black and white Czech glass beads…… many hundred (I lost count but there are at least 450 rings in this necklace) bright aluminum rings got together and trapped all these lovely black and white beads in their little cages. There is no escaping!!!I really enjoyed creating this necklace over the course of last weekend, a long weekend, no less. The weave I used is called “captive inverted round” and the captive part refers to the beads that are captive inside the rope like structure. I had no idea what ring size to use to make this work but trial and error helped me find the right size to work with these beads I had at hand. I have seen the captive part be other things than beads such as more rings, for example, rings of a contrasting colour. I will experiment with that concept at some point in time as well.
This particular necklace is fairly long at over 26″ and I haven’t used a clasp. It’s one continuous loop and easily slides over my head (and I have a pretty big one). I kept contemplating, as I was working on this piece, whether I should make it a short choker style necklace or a longer one and the long style won out. I do have plans though to make another one that’s a whole lot shorter with sparkly Swarovski crystals inside the cage. I already have the crystals at home. I just need to sit down and make it.
Speaking of making it, Fab Fair is coming up in just another short week and I have some great new pieces ready to go as well as tons of earrings. However, I’ve fallen prey to a bit of procrastinating. I have several bracelets and necklaces half finished and quite a few lonely earrings – earrings that are either just missing the ear wire or lonely earrings that don’t have a partner yet. Before getting too much more creative with new ideas, I need to sit down and finish what’s waiting for me to be finished. In the sock knitting world (which I’m deeply entrenched in – I try to knit at least one pair of socks a month), we call this sort of thing the second sock syndrome when you knit one sock and then lose interest in making the sock’s buddy. I guess I’m suffering second earring syndrome…. I think.
Aside from creating jewelry, I am currently in the middle of a yarn/fibre dyeing workshop. We started last night and are continuing tomorrow. I will blog about my yarn dyeing experience over on my “other blog” when the workshop is done. Tomorrow I will spend the day learning to dye up 108 little hanks of silk (little hanks that I spent countless days winding) in the full spectrum of the colours. I just wish the weather would coordinate. On Sunday, I’ll get back to the jewelry!!! Enjoy the weekend!