Volcano? Fireworks?

Another finished piece, this time a pendant. I started with an early attempt at reticulation, which worked beautifully in one part of the brass but didn’t spread to the rest of the piece.

I then cut it out with a hacksaw, tidied up the central hole and polished it.

Initially I wanted to stitch it onto black silk, until I found a piece of black cotton velvet. The edges of the brass and the pearl purl sink so nicely into the pile of the velvet and it gives another wonderful textural contrast.

I took Rachel’s advice after I’d blogged about the blue spirals brooch and stretched the purls slightly before I stitched them down. Much neater.

Some of the longest bullions I’ve ever stitched, and with a slightly slubby thread too. The bullions and the purl are actually holding the metal to the fabric.

I finished off the french knots inside the hole and added some trios in a dark red silk thread to the ends of the purls.

The pendant is two almond shapes cut from pelmet vilene which are laminated together and the velvet laced over them.

The back is another slightly smaller single piece of vilene which has been covered with black kimono silk with a slightly crepey texture.

This was invisibly ladder stitched onto the black velvet and the bale stitched on with red thread.

And boxed.

I really feel I want to do something more with these pieces of jewellery than just accumulate them like I do with my purely textile work. I was wondering if they might be the sort of thing that would sell on etsy… Any thoughts from the wise?

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Finishes

I’ve been soldering, polishing and finally getting some of my pieces close to being finished as well as starting some new pieces which I’m really excited about.

First the green encrusted pendant.

I just needed to trim the bale rod, as I’d soldered the bale slightly off centre, and polish it before slipping it over the fabric and crimping the partial tube closed.

The two bales I cut and shaped from sheet brass were soldered, finished and polished as well.

Then one was stitched onto the first pendant. I used orange stranded cotton and ran it through the bale and the fabric several times before buttonhole stitching the section on the right where the asymmetric nature of the piece means that it doesn’t sit flush to the fabric.

Organza ribbon and rattail in warm gold and beige in place of a chain.

And here is the start of my new piece – in fact, new pieces, as at least two different ideas have come out of this one piece of reticulated brass.

It’s interesting cutting through reticulated brass with a piercing saw as the surfaces are so heavily textured and also the thickness of the brass varies widely. It’s actually harder to saw through the very thin layers as they just twist and break, often taking the slender saw blade with them.

And I’ve still got another circle to cut from the large waste piece.

So, the very start of one new project…

… and another.

And hopefully I should soon be able to show you what I’ve done with this:

So exciting!

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