The big hug - part 2

If you don't know part 1 of the big hug yet, you can find it here.

We left off at the cliffhanger of my dropping my boro lampwork shark on the kitchen floor. The nose and tail broke off, but I could only find part of the tail.
Then something unexpected happened that I can honestly not explain. At least a week later, I found the other piece of the tail, but have no idea where it suddenly came from because I had searched the whole kitchen floor. My best bet is that it had flown even further and the cats found it and knocked it back into the kitchen.
Anyhow, I suddenly had a bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to do something with it. Not what I had planned, not what I really wanted which would make me 100% happy, but something that was still good.

Now how to achieve that?
Obviously I had to glue the shark first. My complicated relationship with glue has long been a running joke among my friends. Much longer than my jewelry-making journey. It's a miracle I don't still have things glued to my fingers from years ago (that's actually a thing for me). I'm terrible with glue and my experience told me that the shark would not be perfect.
Surprise! Not. Of course it wasn't perfect.
So I would have to find a way to hide the scars the best I could. Distracting from them with gold as I had done for my friend's broken dolphin wasn't an option for me because the octopus is copper. Leaving the tail off completely and disguising it - unlike that of my shark the dolphin's tail never turned up again - wasn't an option either because I had the tail and love that long fin.

The tough part about hiding the scars would be that the one through the nose is very close to the eye and that there's a quite massive glass loop on the tail (it is a pendant after all). Had the shark been like a cab, all the way flat on the back, I might have been able to glue it completely onto some backing.
Even before starting I knew I wouldn't be all that happy with the nose part. Oh well.

What exactly should I do, though?
It was obvious that bead embroidery was the only way to go. As I said, this shark is much smaller than the other ones and was even more fragile now (haha). Just wrapping the octopus to it wouldn't make for a very sturdy construction.

So instead I would glue the shark onto the backing where possible, then sew the loop to it and hide it under beads. I would also glue the octopus's head as well as possible (there are wires from the wrapping in the back which lift it up a bit) just to make it hold safely enough while arranging the tentacles around the shark.

Please excuse this bad picture. It's one of my infamous
night time WIP pics and is usually just intended
 for friends. Actually, I had to retrieve it from an old
Facebook message. I hardly ever take real WIP pictures.

This, my friends, sounds a lot easier than it actually is. I first sewed the tentacles on in a few spots. Copper is pliable and can still very stubbornly refuse to do what you want, especially in thick wire wrapped like this, even more so if you go wild with tentacle loops. I would have loved to preserve more of the flow from the WIP pic, but that would have been very wide for a focal for myself.
Of course I would have to sew down the tentacles some more after deciding on bead placement.

So I did all of that and then I had a lot of space for beads. I didn't want to buy new beads at the time. I had a load of seed and cube beads in different sizes and a variety of blue, clear, green, purple, and who has been following my jewelry making for a while knows I can't resist pearls in water scenes.
I started in what I consider (my) classic bead embroidery meaning going in bead rows lying next to each other. Very organized looking, I thought it would make a nice calm background for the hug.
One corner in, I had to admit to myself that I hated it. Because of the thick wire, those tentacles aren't laying flat. So there are not only beads around them, but also quite a few over and  under them. There are also beads under the shark and over the scars (I'm indeed not all that happy with the nose part, but couldn't manage any better without concealing the eye) and under the octopus's head - and getting in these spaces in nice organized rows? Yeah, it didn't work.
I can't tell you how long it took me to embroider that background, one or two beads at a time.

A slightly better WIP picture, still meant for
friends. It doesn't do the sparkle in the
goldstone or the shark justice.

Next up - my old enemy, finishing jewelry.
Two months and still no chain.
Then, however, I remembered my mermaid (this is one big piece of jewelry, but luckily went to a customer who loves it big).

I still had some copper crimps and the faux leather ribbon whose colors worked well with the background.
When I tried it out, though, I didn't like the look of it after all. Somehow the focal seemed to call for a copper chain to go with the octopus.
Rummaging through my supply drawers, however, I only found chain in the wrong size and I really, really didn't want to make my own chain. So I went online shopping instead, but again the chains were either too small or didn't have the right look.
In the end, I found infinity links, which seem to mimic the loops of the tentacles, and used them with jump rings to make a chain. Luckily, I bought just the right amount!

Is this my vision? Heck no, it couldn't be much further from it. I wanted the octopus and the shark all by themselves, maybe with a few beads to hint at the ocean. Had the breaks be in different spots, I might have managed to do it.

Did I save the shark, though? I think so. Another broken piece that didn't go into the trash, but will be shining on. (The urge to get philosophical about broken beauty is big, but I'll spare you!)

The big hug - Part 1

Over ten years ago, I got several boro lampwork pendants from a very talented artisan, manatees (you can see one of them here), a dolphin (you have seen him before as well), and a shark. The pendants are absolutely gorgeous, but it took months for them to ship which put me off ordering more. That's a real pity because I have not seen any since that come even close to them.
Also the shark broke in transport. I got a replacement, but I was determined to find a way of using the broken one as well (I've done that more than once with components, but of course never sold those).

If you haven't noticed it yet, I don't just love sharks, but also octopuses.
This is a picture of just some of those I made over the years. A tiny one, bigger ones, a really big one. Ah, have you already seen it? Sharks!

I experimented with the broken pendant first. The idea had been to hide the glue marks behind tentacles, but show as much of the shark as possible.
It needed a lot of fiddling, but I managed. The pendant got the official name "The hug" because to me those two were friends rather than enemies.
If you think the second octopus-shark hug was easier to make with the experience gained, you would be wrong. Lampwork is really slippery and the tentacles had to sit just the right way to hold the shark safely. The loop on the back of the tail is the only spot where the octopus is actually wired to the shark itself.

The second pendant sold and the first one went to a friend (of course she knew about the glued spots).
I'll be honest, I quickly regretted not keeping one for myself, simply because it proved impossible to find another shark like these.

After searching for a long time, I finally found one and was so happy! It was much smaller than the other ones, but so beautiful.
Somehow I never got around to making something with it, though. There was always something else to try out and wirework was already becoming more difficult for me.
When it started getting really hard on my thumb, however, I knew it was now or never before I wouldn't be able to do it anymore at all. It had been a while since I had played with copper and it felt so good, but it took a lot of breaks to get my octopus finished over the next few weeks.

Talking of breaks ... when I was finally done and wanted to take the octopus to the kitchen to oxidize it, I missed that the shark, which had been in the same box, got tangled in some still loose wire ends. Yes, you have be quite stupid not to notice you are holding two things, but sometimes I am.

It could have fallen in the hallway on the one vinyl floor I have, but no, it fell in the kitchen, on the hardest of all my floors.
You know how some things seem to be happening in slow motion and yet it's impossible for you to do anything about them? Like the time I cut my finger and fingernail with the bread knife and my brain only woke up and told me not to cut there when I had already started bleeding like crazy.
There wasn't a chance for me to catch the shark before it hit the tiles and pieces started jumping. The nose and the tail had broken off (seems to be a thing, the same happened to my friend with her dolphin). I could only find the nose and part of the tail, though.

It may sound ridiculous to you, but I was devastated.
I couldn't replace this shark, no matter how much I looked around. There were a few lampwork sharks, both pendants and figurines and they were pretty, no doubt about that, but none of them had this elegance, none of them spoke to me.
I didn't even want to look at the octopus anymore which says a lot.
Then something unexpected happened and yes, I'm totally saying this as a cliffhanger.

See you for part 2, I hope!

I made an octopus!

You may want to say that you already know that I made an octopus ... or two or five or ten ... after all I had shown a collage of them in 2019 in this long post. Of course I didn't stop making them after this, but the wire had been on the back burner for a while now because new techniques had to be explored which also happened to be easier on my hands than the wire most of the time.

That doesn't mean the wire has stopped calling me, though, so when I was asked to make a custom octopus pendant, I couldn't say no.
I love that none of them comes out the same. Tentacles with one or two wires, with beads or without beads, the head with a cab or without, and best of all - I never know myself what they will look like in the end. Making the tentacles go wild is really the most fun about this. It may seem they are random, but they are not.
The first one starts out randomly, but the next ones are based on it, and often I go back to fiddling on the first again, too.
I like to think the octopus head is telling me what to do ;-)

For this one, a cab was required and the choice was a lovely moss agate cab.
I used moss agate on a custom order before, only in that case the stone was large and dark green and not just the size requirements for the pendant were very specific, I also had to use exactly 23 moss agate beads in the two-wired tentacles which weren't supposed to spread out, all of which made the job a bit of a puzzle.

This time, I was allowed to go wild as long as I added enough moss agate beads to the tentacles and achieved a certain length, and I enjoyed it immensely.
So this is the latest addition to my little octopus family (and I'm already hatching new ideas in my head ;-)).

The Fairy Mouse

I'm still here although I took a longer break due to personal reasons. I haven't been lazy, but you will see more about that in December for a new advent calendar of mine.

The wire had become a pretty rare guest in my creative world lately, but the other day I was determined to step away from the beads and bring the wire back. As usual I didn't have a plan, all I had were four short strands of thicker wire and my working wire.
Let me tell you about the journey I took with them which led me to a peculiar creature.

It's strange how four strands of wire can be "bound" together with more wire, and then you look at them and you start seeing something - if you are lucky, that is, and your muse is playing along. As the length really wasn't enough for big experiments, it was only natural to bend the component or whatever you would have called it at that moment in the center.
One thing I saw was a little octopus like one I had made before. It was good to know I would have a plan B, even if I didn't have a plan A. I'm saying plan B because I didn't really want to make an octopus. I wanted to make .... an eye ... an eye with feathers ... did I have a cab I could use ... the faux amber, perfect size ... and the feathers on the end (please note that none of the steps went as quickly as described in this post, I held stuff up a lot and looked at it and put one thing on the other, unwove (is that even a word?) wire and so on, and never took one picture of the process because I couldn't disturb the muse, right?) ... and now I had an eye and the "amber" kept moving a little, so I had to get the wires in the back tighter ... shining through the cab now, not sure I like that, but I'll leave it for now ... next the feathers?

No worries, I won't go on like that, but I wanted to show that this is pretty much how the process of creating often works for me.
Before the feathers my eye fell on an agate slice. THE agate slice. I got it in an early Easter sale, shortly before the pandemic made me stay home. Don't ask what agates have to do with Easter, the hardware store kept them in a basket at the table with decorative items on sale. This particular slice had been out of the stash drawer several times, but had always refused talking to me. This time, however, it said "look at me, I'm a mouse". An eye with feathers and a green mouse. Weird. Leaves instead of feathers. Leaves, woods, a green mouse ... a fairy mouse!

That's when it all came together. My mouse needed a big ear, swirls and scrolls on her body, a long tail with swirls and even swirly whiskers.
When I finally held it against the light, I noticed that especially the lower wire behind the cab seemed to add more dimension and life to the eye.

It really is an odd little creature, but aren't we all? ;-)
Now it just needs a bail and/or chain if I decide to make it a pendant. It's not a lightweight. Maybe it would look nice in a shadow box with some kind of woodsy background?

Tackle that stash - Ammonite carnelian pendant

Lately I have been neglecting my wire badly. One reason is that my thumb tires much more easily when handling wire, so I have to take more breaks, another is that the beads simply talk louder and especially clearer to me at the moment. Not literally of course, I'm not THAT crazy.
This pendant started out with a few very bad attempts at a simple woven bezel. It almost felt like my first time doing that. My thumb hurt, my motivation sank, and even the wires started looking tired. I ripped everything up and only a few days later a small idea popped up in my head that you can't even see in the piece anymore.

Often I don't choose a stone or cab and make a bezel for it, but start weaving and bending the wire instead to see if something comes of it, and then I go looking for something that has about the right size and make the two come together.
In this case I tried a fossilized coral, an agate and a glass cab before I found the ammonite.
If you know my previous ammonite pendants, you see that this is not a variation of those, and there are no tentacles! Actually the tiny swirls at the top were there before the ammonite as well, so it's not an attempt to sneak at least something "tentacly" in ;-)

To give the pendant a little more color, I decided to add some beads, chose matte carnelian to enhance the autumn feeling and filled up the empty space on the left. You'll have to trust me on this, there's no weaving underneath there.

Even if it looks as if the woven part on the bottom is flat against the fossil, it's not. I hope this picture can show it a little better.

This is my welcome to autumn :-)

Tackle that stash - Butterfly necklace

Yesterday I found a little butterfly body in one of my wire tins where I keep wire ends that I want to use for jumprings, headpins etc.
It looked so sad without wings, so after a while of not making jewelry anymore it was time I sat down and gave it some. The hardest part was to decide how to fill the wings. On the last butterfly I used a lot of crystals, but I wanted to give this one's wings a more delicate look, so some of tiny blue agate and amethyst beads from my stash seemed like the right choice.
Only afterwards I noticed that the colors had been vaguely inspired by those of the male common blue butterfly. It's a pity I hadn't seen that before, so I could have made the lower wing pair bigger and maybe added some blue to the body as well.
I still think, however, that it's cute :-)

Tackle that stash - The Leopard

Usually I make a pendant first and then put a bail on it. In this case it was the other way round.
When I took some shorter wires out of my leftovers baggie the other day to turn them into a pair of earrings - in the end they became sparkly butterflies - I found a wire woven bail, so now I had to find something to put on there. I don't even remember putting it in there. Had I cut it off a different piece or was it one of those leftover wire projects I did in the hope of finding the right piece for it eventually? No idea.

I went to my stash drawers and tried a lampwork tree bead first, but it was too long. Then I thought a bigger mookaite bead would be nice, but the bead holes were too small on all of them.
Then I found the leopard. The leopard was another of those beads that I thought would never make their way out for lack of a good idea. I got it from Babs Beads & Design many years ago. I remember falling in love a whole group of "animal print" beads. I used one of them in a wire knit pendant in combination with some jasper, but the others patiently waited for their turn.

Sometimes things can suddenly be real easy. The wires on the bail had the perfect length, so why not let this little beauty shine on its own?
The funny part is that I had thought the exact same thing a few years ago. I used the bead in a ring with a wire woven band then which I had completely forgotten about. When I happened to see the picture in one of my folders just now, I remembered that I hadn't been all around happy in the end with the way the ring sat on my finger.
I like the bead much better in a pendant and think this could even be unisex, maybe on a leather cord. Now I just have to decide if I'll oxidize the copper to an even darker color although it is not as light as it comes out in this picture.
What do you think?

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Foliage

"Foliage? I can do that!"
When I read the September topic for the Art Elements Design Challenge that Caroline gave us, I was completely confident that I would rock this. I have made leaves and leaf patterns both in wire and beads before, and I even thought that this time I would be able to make more than one piece.

BAM! Unfortunately this is not a "I did it" BAM, but a "life gets in the way" one.
So this is the part where I'm getting to the cheap excuses, in this case work and health or rather a combination of both which tends to kill off not my creativity, but the ability to transfer my ideas into actual pieces. For example I saw some wire crochet leaves in fall colors before my eyes, but after ripping one up twice I didn't feel like another attempt.

I even forgot that I had started making something that I put on my manikin head to decide about a clasp and embellishments.
Just a few days ago I happened to see it again (and I walk by that head all the time!) and had planned to work on it some more yesterday after coming home from work, but due to a stranded train it took me three hours to get home, and all I wanted there was something to eat and sleep.
This morning now I wasn't even sure if I liked it at all anymore without some major changes. Now I'm afraid it's going to move to the Drawer of Eternal WIPs which is not a good place to be, I've heard ;-)

I'm glad that I'm not standing - well, actually sitting - here without having anything to show.
I love making these kind of leaves, they are great to use in earrings, pendants or necklaces, and it's always fun embellishing them with what I can find at the moment.
Here I used chocolate brown freshwater pearls and matte carnelian beads for that perfect fall feeling. After all fall is my favorite season!

Now here's the good stuff, a list of all the other participants in the challenge, and I'm sure they'll be showing a lot more. I'm already looking forward to going through all the posts and pictures!
Please have a look, I know you won't be disappointed!

Guests

Alison - Alysen - Anita - Beth and Evie - Cat (that's me ;-)) - Dawn - Divya - Hope - Jill - Karen - Kathy - Laurie -  Mary - Michelle - Sarah - Sarajo - Tammy 

AE team members

Claire - Cathy - Caroline - Jenny - Lesley - Marsha - Niky - Susan

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Octopuses

First of all ... you are free to think of these as octopi or octopodes, should you so prefer, but while I used to say octopi and loved my octopi t-shirt, I now like how fun it sounds to say octopuses, and it's not wrong (thank you, Merriam-Webster).

Second, when Claire announced the topic for the Art Elements August theme challenge - Octopus - I did a little chair dance. Not only do I love octopuses, but I may also be slightly obsessed with making them.
I first got inspired by the polymer clay octopus my friend Star made and which is looking at me at this very moment.
 

It took me quite a few hours to crochet my octopus from wire. The man came later and was not meant to end up in the tentacles, but you know how those things happen. They are still in their deadly (?) embrace sitting in the ocean department of my Steiff collection.

Then there was Hank, the little lampwork thief, also crocheted from wire.

After a long break from making octopuses (but never not loving them) I started wire weaving, and that really got me going. Instead of telling you each single story I made a little collage (minus one of which it seems I didn't take a picture). There's tiny Barney at the top, and now you can tell how I more and more became obsessed by twisting those tentacles. Gosh, they are fun to make!!

So I decided on a big piece for this challenge, and maybe a small one. The small one hasn't happened yet, and I honestly didn't think I'd finish the big one in time although I started really early this time. My first step was to order small cabs.

Why? This is why.



I wanted octopus babies of my own, but instead of making them all one color, I decided on a multitude of colors. I chose agate, sodalite, zoisite, jasper, aventurine, amethyst, rose quartz, and more. Each cab got its own kind of weave, and voilà - an army of octopus babies, ready to take over the world, mwahahaaaaaa!

Actually this was the easy part. How to put them together now? I could dangle them from a chain, but a tentacle army is not quite as effective if those tentacles keep tangling. I kept laying them out like this and like that, I think they got rather tired of me.

Just two days ago I suddenly knew what I wanted to do. The video should have given me the idea much earlier. Those babies needed a mom!
One of my easiest exercises - well, not really because by now I began getting nervous about finishing this in time. AND I still didn't know how to put it all together in the end.
A little deep breathing, a lot of cursing and some dramatic yelling "I can't do this, I'm useless!" later I had done it - almost. Hard to believe and still true, you can run out of exactly that one kind of chain that you need while still having all others. I just found enough to connect my babies in the back, though. Phew.

I rarely make big, over the top necklaces, but this is one of them, and I love each little tentacle.
Taking a picture, however, wasn't easy, it was a little crowded in that light tent and a little too early in the morning to take a picture in the garden, and on top of that I only had four hours of sleep.
I'll try to come up with something better later, so please bear with me.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a blog hop. Once again I ask you, no, I order you to go to these links and see what the other participants have come up with. It's worth it, honestly. Do it now. Thank you ;-)

Guests

Cat (that's me ;-)) - Evie and Beth - Hope - Karen - Kathy - Melissa - Michelle - Rozantia - Sarajo - Tammy

AE team members

Cathy - Claire - Jenny - Laney - Lindsay - Marsha

Last but not least I want to thank Claire for this fantastic topic. I have a feeling she and I share the same love of octopuses ....

P.S. Oops, almost forgot my own polymer clay octopus. That won't do, he's grumpy enough as it is! ;-)

Have you ever wondered ...

... where the yarn for my yarn baskets is coming from?
Maybe you have been following me a little over the years and got to meet some of the sheep I couldn't have done without. These are just three of them, Belle, Spots and Myrtle.

It has always been a happy little flock, and none looks like the other.
These three have already left me for the big world out there, Belle and Spots live in the USA now and Myrtle is in Canada. I guess they like it there because they never bothered to write, the little beasts. I know they are in good hands, though, so it's okay.

And every, now and then a new sheep turns up to help me out.
Let me introduce you to Minnie. She's a real cutie with her sky blue eyes (yes, you can only see one of them). We already had a little collaboration as you can see. I hope I didn't make her work too hard in this heat!

You know what's funny, I just noticed that so far all of my sheep except one have been looking in one direction ... I wonder what they are seeing there ...

Tackle that stash - Cantera opal pendant with pearl

I have a tiny stash of Cantera opals which are Mexican opals still in their matrix of pinkish rhyolite, and I love them. I can't say how often I took them out and put them back to keep them safe from the outside world ;-) My two favorite ones have gone to good homes and I still miss them. Silly, I know.

It was time to take a deep breath and start letting see them - well, one of them at least - what's outside of the stash drawer - only to go into the finished jewelry drawer afterwards, that is, unless someone takes this little beauty home.

This Cantera opal is almost clear. It looks like a drop of water on a crackled ground, but if you move it, you can see some tiny specks of color, green, yellow, and red. Unfortunately I didn't manage to take a really good picture of them, it seems the stone wants to keep its secret!
As it is not very big - those opals often aren't - I kept the woven bezel rather simple, but added a bigger bail to balance it out and of course I couldn't resist a small embellishment, a very light pink pearl.

Three more opals left ...

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Birds of Prey

Birds of prey, what a great topic for the new Art Elements Design Challenge! I had no idea what to make, but I've always loved those birds, so nothing could go wrong, right? Thank you, Cathy!
I was even brave enough to post on the AE Facebook page that I was well on the way this time. Yay!
That yay turned into a nooooo pretty quickly. Let me explain.

I happened to have a "paint cabochon" (like a Fordite, but not a real one and not as colorful) already set in woven wire. The drop shape seemed perfect for an owl body. I love owls although I don't get the chance to see them often even though I don't live that far from the woods. I remember once coming home late at night, however, and hearing a soft sound from a tree standing in the yard of the daycare center down the road. When we looked up we saw it was a huge owl sitting there. I don't know if he was trying to warn us off or if he had seen prey, but we decided we wouldn't disturb him for too long although I could have stood there staring at him forever. He was gorgeous!

Back to my paint cab. I had the body and now all I needed was a branch for it to sit on, large wings and a head. I put on some wings that I was not completely happy with.
People who know me also know that I tend not to take WIP pictures. That has several reasons. I'm too lazy, I don't want the flow of creativity to be disturbed, I don't want to jinx the piece, and I'm too lazy, oops, already said that.
So I'm sorry, but I can't show you the wings or the body. Or the branch that I started making, but that I gave up on because I didn't see a good way to attach the owl to it without it falling over constantly. The wings did look, hmm, okay at best, the head was pretty good. Then the bead for the beak broke right after the last wire was snipped. Call it destiny.
You don't want to know what happened next. It wasn't a full blown tantrum, but it did come pretty close. There may have been some light or less light cursing, and when the wire cutter came out .... enough to say that I actually apologized to the poor critter before I cut it up because I'm crazy that way. In such a case when I have fiddled around for too long and finally decide this has to end here and now, I cut. I don't even try to save anything. There's a time for saving and there's a time for "destroy this thing or it will come back forever to haunt your soul".
Excuse me while I'm taking a deep breath. Okay. On to the next chapter.

I had liked the idea in general and, most important, now time had started running out again. So I went through my cab stash and found some labradorite in a drop shape, carved to make it look like a leaf. Or - haHA!! - like feathers.
As if the owl in the tree from so many years ago came to me in spirit as an inspiration, things went a lot more smoothly this time. I wove my bezel, shaped some branches (similarities with tentacles are purely coincidental, cough cough) and added some Czech glass leaves. I made a little face consisting of eyes - looking a bit like a pince-nez now that I'm thinking about it - that I "filled" with two yellow bicones, and a beak. The plan had been to attach that to the bezel, but it looked wrong on the stone, so instead I made a little head around the face which made me much happier, especially because I find the weaving in the face reminds of feathers as well now.
Last but not least I oxidized the copper. As I had to take some breaks for the sake of my wrist and thumb joint, I finished this one the evening before the reveal once again, but I made it. So now I can really say it, YAY!
This pendant gives me great pleasure, I have to admit, and I have to hold back not to make another one right away while I still remember how I did it! ;-)

This is not just a challenge, but also a blog hop, so please have a look at all the other hoppers' posts as well!

Guests

Tammy - Beth - Cat (that's me!) - Anita - Kathy - Alysen - Linda - Rozantia - Jennifer - Hope - Sarajo - Melissa - Sarah 

AE Team

Caroline - Cathy - Claire - Jen - Jenny - Karen - Laney - Lesley - Lindsay - Marsha - Niky - Sue

Tackle that stash - Magnesite drop pendant

This must have been one of my favorite stash tacklers lately. The reason? Not only did I manage to use a whole magnesite bead from my nine hundred magnesite baggies (yes, I may exaggerate just a little here), but I found the perfect one right away.
You may wonder what is so perfect about a simple drop bead. Actually this started quite a while ago. I don't even remember what I had started making this setting for, but it didn't work out. Too small, too big, a cab that was too slippery maybe? I kept the setting, though, to rip it up eventually, so I could use the wire again. Somehow I never did, though. It ended up in a little compartment of one of my storage boxes where I collect small wire leftovers for jump rings etc.

Today I went for my magnesite beads because I knew there were some hearts in there and I wanted to use one for a challenge. Then when I was looking for a headpin as well, I found that setting hanging around with no purpose. Not any longer, however. I remembered a drop bead in that baggie that might just work, and it did. Perfectly. The size was just right.
I wish things would work out like that more often!

Tackle that stash - Who was first, the hen or the egg?

Of course this post is not really about hens or eggs. It's about in what different ways a project can develop over time and which thought comes first.
I mentioned often enough how my designs like to change during the process. An earring becomes a pendant because I often don't have the patience for making the same thing twice. A simple wire crochet bezel turns into a multi-layer bezel of knitted and crocheted wire, never again to repeated because I wouldn't know why. A piece screams for one dangle ... and another dangle ... and how about one here and a little something on the top? These are just a few examples.

And then there are those pieces I don't even have a vague idea of when I start. They don't always work out. Sometimes I end up with something that calls for something I don't know (yet). They are usually experimental pieces that will be lying around for a long time until my brain suddenly comes up with just the right thing - although it may deny having anything to do with the result a few months later and instead blame it on my inability to listen - or they will have to wait forever serving as reminders how very, very wrong things can go. Sometimes they have to be eliminated because I can't bear looking at them anymore without being able to finish them. Oh yes, and more than I care to think of are probably hidden away in my infamous drawers.

There are also good moments when I start making something that I like, so I go hunting for the perfect component, and then I'm lucky and find it!
In this case I vaguely had a snail's shell on my mind when I began weaving a spiral. After a while a cab under the spiral to bring it out more sounded like a good idea. I was thinking of a stone cab, but unfortunately I didn't have anything in the right size that was round or oval.
Without much hope I looked in my lampwork drawer and found this lovely cab, a meltie by Deronda Designs. This must have been in my stash for a long, long time because I wrote about Deronda's melties in 2010 which I almost can't believe.
I like how the soft pink and green - and a bit of black, those are no bits of fluff - peek through the copper which will stay unoxidized this time!

Now I need just a little more light for a picture on my manikin. I love rain, but it's not that helpful with pictures.

Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop - Swirl

This hasn't been my month for different reasons. Life got in the way and ate up my motivation, my concentration and my creativity.
It would have been easier to send an email in time saying sorry, can't do it this time. On the other hand I can be so stubborn. I've got this. Some light stretching, shaking my head free from the cobwebs, grabbing my wire and ... hm, can you also hear that cricket in the background? And where's that tumbleweed coming from regarding the fact I'm not even in a desert? Oh, dust bunnies. Wait, just how long have I been sitting here with that wire in my hand??

It's strange that swirls - the topic for August at the Art Elements Design Challenge and Blog Hop given us by Marsha - didn't make me jump all over the place with ideas. You know that I love to make tentacles for example which could have been one way out of this dilemma, but this time not even they helped me out. I drew a complete blank.
So I started making a little spiral hoping it would awaken some creative spark - today, on the day of the reveal! - , and there it was.
I had been admiring wire woven vessels for a long time. Mary Tucker's work was one of the first one of that kind that caught my eye. 
Basket weaving translated into wire fascinated me and I made some very feeble attempts long before I even contemplated diving deeper into the wire weaving world. Maybe it was time for another one, hopefully not that feeble this time.

This is a prototype or maybe a WIP. The piece is closed from both sides, so it's not like a basket, more like a chunky and rather heavy button. I'm not sure yet if I want to use it in a piece of jewelry or if I'm going to keep it as a reminder and as an inspiration to keep going and trying to make this work in my way. One thing I know, I will not be able to put it on my desk or Gundel will kick it round the place in no time! She already has that look in her eye ...
As you see I haven't put a bail on, I haven't oxidized, it just has been a bit of wire play for now, but who knows what's going to happen next? :-)

Other participants in the Challenge have not been quite as unmotivated or uncreative as I have been, so please go by their blogs and see what they have come up with. It's what I'm going to do myself now, and I do believe that they have to offer a big inspiration boost!

Guests
 
Alison -  Anita - Cat (aka me) - Caroline - Jill - Kathy - Karin - Kimberly - Mischelle -  Raven - Sarajo - Susan - Tammy 

AE Team Members
 
Cathy -  Caroline -  Claire - Jen - Jenny and Lesley - Laney - Marsha - Susan