Production

A few days ago, a blogger buddy contacted me about having a special piece made for his mom. We emailed back and forth about design ideas, and implements. We discussed color (s), a clasp, an accent bead. Eric really liked the look of an accent beads on the crochet ropes, so after we'd settled on a primary accent color, I quickly contacted my friend Teri to see if she had any red hearts in her existing bead stash.

See, most people don't realize this, but it can take up to two full days to complete a lampwork bead, depending on the finish, and how long you wish to anneal it, and how long you keep it in the kiln. Well, lucky me, she DID have some, but, she also had to finish filling an order for a local art gallery, so I wouldn't be able to get the bead until today. However, this would allow me quite a bit of time to complete the rope part of my design.

Wine red was the one color that was mentionned, and I just happenned to have two deep reds that I thought would work. So much so, that I mixed them both: black-lined transparent dark red, and silver-lined transparent dark red.

I remembered this deep silver-lined transparent 'root beer' brown 6/0s that I thought would look awesome, but then, I also remembered that they had been very unceremoniously dumped in a container together with some size 11/0 beads at some point, and that if I wanted to use them, I'd have to cull... So cull I did. Took me close to 45 minutes on that alone! LOL!

Once the beads were all mixed into a 'Soup', I thought there was still something missing to the mix. I thought of another 'amber-ish' color to add, but after spending about 20 minutes seperating THOSE from another pile, and mixing them in, I decided their silvery luster wasn't quite what I was looking for, they made the mixture look too 'cool', I wanted a 'warmer' effect , so I threw in a few transparent 'rose' beads, with a gold luster finish, and that just lightenned the piece right up.

I made two crocheted sections, that were to be connected by a large lampworked heart.

A large Teri Elliot heart, with silver foil lining, and two small accent rondelles. It was difficult to decided where I would insert the beads. Should I put one rondelle on each side of the heart? Should I keep them separate from the heart.... I opted for the latter, wanting the heart to stand out on its own. I used them to accent the clasp ends of the ropes.

The finished necklace, the heart is meant to be worn to the side.

This large sterling silver toggle was the third clasp I laid out, and I just fell in love with it as part of the necklace; gives it a more contemporary look. I like the clean lines.

I really hope that Eric's mom likes this piece. Actually, I hope she loves it. This was a very exciting experience actually, seeing as it's the very first time that a "Blogger" contacted me about ordering a piece. Bloggers Rule!

Peace.

Jewels