Moon web

"Your January/February challenge is to make something that depicts your zodiac sign." Thank you, JAC challenge mistress. I had made a crab before once, but not with signs as inspiration, and a quick search on my blog informed me that I was indeed never inspired by my zodiac sign.

I had no idea at all at first, but then I found a piece of blue fabric that has been around since I first started selling jewelry. A friend of mine who sewed visited and we went to the "Sewing World" in town, a shop for fabric, sewing machines, haberdashery, picked a dark blue fabric with big golden stars, and she made me a bunch of jewelry bags from it. I used part of the fabric for backgrounds in photos and as a "shawl" for Jo, my manikin head, then eventually it got stashed away.
When I found it now, the backside without the stars screamed night sky at me and inspired me to go look for one of my metal curtain rings.
I thought I had shown my first bead embroidery piece using one of those rings, but obviously I only did on the gallery page, so here it is. It was a new interpretation of one of my favorite HeatherCats, Silhouette Cat.

I glued the curtain ring on, beaded the bezel, and embroidered the scene which sounds a lot easier than it was because the ring is quite massive. Let me assure you that I learned nothing from that for the challenge piece.
It would be smarter to embroider the scene without the ring getting in the way and then glue it on and do the bezel, but the scene would have to be perfect in size for that to work. Maybe I will think of trying that the next time.

My plan had been to embroider the constellation for Cancer using a star bead for the biggest star, a bigger seed bead for the smaller one, and crystals for the others.
When I had finished that, however, I hated every bit of it. It looked like a weird clock, squeezed into the space. I cut it up again and thought I'd just use the ring for another night scene and start a completely new challenge piece.

Choosing a bigger cat eye cab for the full moon is a nod to the most beautiful perigee I ever experienced, when the moon on our way to work was so big that it felt as if we could drive right into it. It was really magic.
What next?
I decided on a spider web, something else I have been fascinated with forever. With spider, of course.
Then it struck me. How about a tiny cancer constellation next to the moon that Cancerians are so often drawn to ...

Voilà, my challenge pendant.
My muse works in mysterious ways sometimes.

Under the blue moon

I really have to blame den Dekan for this or thank him. Probably both because it was definitely him who had hidden the blue dichroic glass cab, but because he also made me find it again when he hid something else in the same place before my eyes.
It was a nice surprise, and as I was still in "moon mode" from the moon hare that I made for the JAC challenge "Moon and Stars", I started humming Blue Moon. That's a lot of moon ;-)
We had the old single by Elvis Presley, so that's always the version that comes to my mind first. Those were the times, me trying to convince my mother that I HAD to do my homework to background music aka all my father's old singles from the 50s and 60s.
Luckily we had the old "Musiktruhe" that I have shown here years ago, a TV/radio/record player combination. One of its very useful features was that you could put on several singles at a time (the family doesn't agree exactly on how many) which would then drop down and play one after another. I doubt my Mom would have approved of my getting up after each song and changing the single while doing homework.

And here is Elvis' voice in all its 1954 glory.



My mind began wandering.
Sitting near a lake listening to the sounds of crickets and frogs ... spotting some dragonflies having settled for the night ... under a blue moon ...

With the blue moon, the nightly background, and the dark green blade of grass, I wanted a contrasting color for the dragonflies, so I chose a mix of red beads to embroider them, with clear AB sequins for the wings.
It reminded me of the time a red dragonfly visited me in our little garden once. We don't have a pond, so I guess it had come over from another garden to say hello and then headed back.

Quite some time and a bead order later because I ran out of background beads, I thought this would have made a fun bracelet instead of a pendant, but with the backing already sewn on, I finally decided against that and added a hex bead rope instead.
I tried to take a video to show how sparkly this necklace is, but that didn't work, so it will have to be a late night picture for now.

The moon hare

Believe it or not, but my life with animals did not begin with cats.
Some of our first companions were bunnies, our own, but also guests from the zoo.
The last one was my crazy boy Buster.

As you can see, the love extended to other bunnies as well, and there are more, in metal, as pictures, or in plush, such as this little old Steiff fellow.

It is not surprising that bunnies also made it into my work before, like the needle felted bunnaroo or these bunny siblings.

I could keep going, but it's time to get to the point.
The current challenge at the Jewelry Artisans Community is "Moon and Stars". Perfect for me as a moon lover.

What a lucky coincidence that my last bead order contained some more "moon" cabs, the faceted kind that I had used before, for example in the Moonlight Ravens, but also a few larger cat eye cabs.

I glued on one of the latter and that's when it hit me that a motif I had been wanting to do for a long time was even more perfect for me than just moon and stars - the Moon Hare.

While I learned about the Man in the Moon here, other cultures from Asia to America see the Hare or Rabbit in the Moon. The legends about the Moon Hare vary from country to country, if you are interested, you can find them here. It's really fascinating to read about similiarities and differences.

Now to some other rabbits that I have been fascinated for decades. The story is wild, kind of traumatizing as well, but the ending is beautiful. I'm talking about "Watership Down". I love both the book and the movie although there are scenes that still break my heart. I never fail to cry at the end when Hazel, the chief rabbit, is taken away by El-ahrairah to find peace after a long life.

El-ahrairah was the first rabbit, and although he upset Lord Frith, the creator of the world, he got the gift of speed, cunning, digging, and good hearing.

This is him after receiving that gift (thank you to Nightpaww for the GIF).

Several rabbits I knew were named after the book by us (unforgotten are Blackie Blackavar, the best rabbit mom ever, and sweet little Hyzenthlay) and the inspiration doesn't end there.

This is my bead embroidered Moon Hare.

As you can tell, El-ahrairah has inspired part of it.
By Frith, who has been on my bead looming list for ages, I got inspired to choose a flowing free form for the pendant.

Again, I used the beautiful dark blue hex beads for the night sky and golden AB ones for the stars.
I just love that magical sparkle when moving the piece, and this will definitely not be the last time for the hex beads to turn up in a design of mine.

There, now you know (almost) the whole story behind my love for rabbits and why I not only had fun making this pendant, but also why it brought up a lot of memories from the last 36 years, some of them bittersweet.
While I miss my bunnies (and the rest of the zoo), two cats are quite enough to keep me on my toes and also I wouldn't trust dem Dekan to leave a rabbit alone. So who knows, maybe I will be reviving more memories through my work instead.

Oldies but Goodies - June Moon

I'm a June child which I usually blame for loving the moon so much.
June birthstones are the moonstone, the alexandrite and the pearl. I remember being very disappointed as a teenager because for me a pearl wasn't a stone. I would have preferred something sparkly and not so "old". The moonstone was okay, but not really exciting, either. I never even knew about the alexandrite then.
People grow older and learn things, and sometimes the tastes changes with the years, too. I can now appreciate the shimmer of a pearl and a moonstone. I don't know when I found out that moonstones can come in different colors, but I admit that my personal favorite is still the white one because it has such a magic look to me.

For this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge the topic was June moon which left the door wide open for different pieces as we are rather generous about the rules. No one had a June beetle to offer, though ;-)
Instead I present to you a variety of moon inspired pieces of jewelry. Are you game for a trip to the moon with us?

1 and 7 Cat's Wire
2 and 4 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 6 RioRita
5 and 8 My Bijou Life

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Moon

I love the moon. It is not the first time I've said this on my blog. In 2009 I talked about my favorite perigee ever, a magical event that I never forgot - a HUGE moon and we were heading right into it. Well, we weren't, but it felt like it. I had never seen the moon that big and I haven't ever since, and no, although it was around 5 am, I know it was not a dream.
So there was no question about participating in the Art Elements Design Challenge for which Lindsay chose the topic Moon. This time I wouldn't just be participating, though, I would master this challenge like a boss by starting early. I had loads of ideas.

The cow jumping over the moon was the first one, even before I saw the picture in the post. My inspiration came from a different source, Mary Poppins. It would have to be a big moon for me to manage a cow in a good size, and how would I attach it? I'm still thinking about that one.
Then there was Little Peter's Journey to the Moon by Gerdt von Bassewitz about a May beetle taking two good children to the moon. Hans Baluschek's illustrations would have made for great inspiration. I didn't have the book, though, but would have wanted it for the details. Another one for the list.
Theodor Storm. The Little Haverman. Little Hobbin. The Little Häwelmann. I found all these titles for the fairy tale about the little boy who doesn't want to sleep and uses his cradle for a little trip on a moonbeam. Another inspiration. Ugh. This was getting more difficult than I had planned.

Should I even go for the full moon yet again? When I was a kid, I turned the C from my first name into a waning moon (under which I was born, by the way, which I looked up for the first time today) with a big nose, a googly eye and a wide grin for a signature. That would be fun to make once I got better at soldering, but not now. Did I even want to use wire?
Decisions, decisions!
I kept thinking and waiting for the perfect idea, but then I realized I didn't even have a moon I could use. Rather small magnesite beads were the closest I had and they didn't convince me. Polymer clay was out of the question, I wasn't in the mood for light colors and black cat hair. I had a rose quartz cab. Was there something like a pink moon? A song by Nick Drake, Pink Moon, from his third and last studio album with the same name. Never heard of him. What was I doing?? I was going into the wrong direction and time started running out.

Then I got lucky (was about time, too!). While looking for something else I found the cab I had had in mind all the time, a carved moon face with closed eyes. It called for a night sky, craters and stars. Finally I was getting somewhere!
First I beaded a simple peyote bezel with my beloved gunmetal AB and clear AB seed beads in size 11 and 15.
Next stop - moonstones. I didn't have any, but I had a ring that I had been wanting to rip up for some time, anyway. I created "craters" by adding seed beads around the moonstones that I sewed on the bezel. Last but not least there had to be a little fringe with a mix of all the beads.

Another last minute project finished, I am getting good at this! ;-)
 

Please pay a visit to all the other participants in this challenge, too. I promise it's going to be worth your time.

Guests

Jenny - Melissa - Kathy - Sarajo - Hope - Sarah - Rebecca - Divya - Anita - Rozantia - Raven - Cat (that's me!) - Evia - Alysen - Beth - Tammy
 
AE Team

Claire - Laney - Caroline - Cathy - Sue - Niky - Jenny - Jen - Lindsay


P.S. Do you know the moon from The Mighty Boosh? That one could provide me with more ideas ...

Fly me to the moon

Many years ago I watched a documentary about Picasso. He was telling, uhm, stuff that I have forgotten, all I remember is him painting on a panel of glass. He started painting and then he added a bit here and a bit there, then suddenly painted all over it, and although I'm not a big fan of his paintings, I was hypnotized by the painting changing like that all the time. I have forgotten what he started with and I don't remember what it looked like in the end. I do remember there was a rooster at some point.

The fascinating part was how the painting was in motion throughout the process, much more than I had expected.

I'm not Picasso and I'm no painter. I don't know what drove him to work the way he did, maybe I should have listened better.

What I do know is that I'm still fascinated by a design changing all the time unexpectedly.

The July challenge of the Starving Artists Team is "Fly me to the moon". My first thought was a carved polymer clay moon, the second one was moonstones. Half moon. No, full moon. Did I have enough moonstones left? A small full moon made of silver and moonstones. Yeah, with star charms dangling from it. A pendant. Where's my fine silver? Oh yeah, upstairs. Great, now I forgot to bring the charms as well. Wait, what's this? A few leftover moonstones, smaller ones. Stars. The full moon surrounded by night sky. Black wire with moonstone stars. A flat pendant. No, now that I started working with the black wire I feel a domed look is better. How about a double layer edge since the edge started curling so nicely. Hm, know what? Maybe this shouldn't be a pendant at all, it would be a pretty cool ring. Big, but lightweight, and definitely different. On a sterling silver shank.

See what I mean? When looking at the ring now, you won't even know of all the thoughts that come with it, or the time that went into it. I know and it's why I love so much what I do.

And there it is now - in my shop.

What a show-off I am!

I just had to share that I did it. I am not sure if it was the first time that I caught both the Treasury West and the main one.
As you know from my blog, I am a cancerian. I have always been drawn to the moon, especially the full moon. Once we were driving to work in the morning and there was a perigee. For those who don't know the word (I didn't know it before a forum friend used it, but now it has a magic sound to me), it means that the moon is very close to the Earth. It was so beautiful, I was wide awake although I am a night owl and therefore have my problems dealing with the world at 5 am.
This huge moon - I just couldn't take my eyes off it and felt like we would be driving directly into it within seconds. I don't think I ever had seen that being so conscious about it if at all. I know I'll never forget it.
Oops, am I digressing? I found this quote and I liked it a lot, so here are my choices to go with the quote and the thought behind it.
Shhh, I like the talisman best and I am thinking very hard about buying it. Look at this moon and look at this pretty witch. I wouldn't want to buy it yet, though, because it gives the treasury an extra kick I think. What to do, what to do ....



Before I forget it, click on the image to enlarge it and if you want to comment or have a closer look at single listings (stay away from the talisman!!), here you go - Aim for the moon.