Life is full of turmoil right now. I need my jewels for their power-not just their beauty. They need to convey specific messages.
These two necklaces are in daily rotation. The ‘butter me up’ knife is by Jennifer Bethleune. It is on a chain with a clasp.
The skull-and-crown charm was a gift from a friend. It is knotted onto waxed linen and then knotted onto my neck. I’ll have to cut it off or wear it until the power is exhausted.
I’ve been wearing it for a week.
A gift from Tracy Thomasson.
I usually wear it layered up with several other chain-y, charm-y necklaces.
She etched the metal tab.
I made this necklace after seeing a book by Mary Hettmansburger that featured woven wire jewelry. The book has basket pendants, woven cuffs and woven spirals. I made a few tiny wire baskets pretty quickly, no directions needed (my Appalachian roots helped me out there) but the coiled, shell-like design didn’t come so naturally.
I used heavy-gauge square wire for the neck wire. It’s comfy and cool in hot weather.
Today’ agenda:
Breakfast with in-laws
Take daughter to horse show
Make baguette
Narrowly avoid tornado
Pick up onion at grocers
Make cassoulet and haricots verte for dinner with in-laws
Sometimes when you get dressed in the morning you have to plan on a lot of disparate activities crammed into a busy day. This is a favorite theme in shopping-centered magalogs like Lucky and Glamour; Five Wardrobe Basics That Take You From Office To A Night Out.
The problem is my day is never that simple. Office to Night Out?
That’s only TWO outfits. I can do that, easy-peasy.
Today I had to go from Good Daughter-In-Law/Mother to Storm Chaser to Chef with one outfit. I decided to wear my ‘Crafty’ necklace in case I got sidetracked and needed to remember who I usually am.
Oh, and my family made it thru the storm just fine, but we’re mourning the North Carolinians who didn’t.
This necklace was made by Tracey Johnson (see yesterday for the link) out of hand-dyed silk cording. That brass disc features a natural patina and is stamped with the word ‘crafty.’ the silk and accent bead are red, my favorite color. You can’t see it in the photo but the silk is knotted into chain and the clasp in the back, an elegantly simple solution that is one of my favorite finishing techniques.
If you have been reading this blog for a while now you’ve probably figured out that I have lots of necklaces but not a lot of clothes. I think I’ve worn this dress at least twice already and I’m afraid to look back at the blog and find out it is really five or six times so I’m not going to do that.
La la la la la…
Obviously, I like making necklaces more than I like shopping for clothes.
Normally, this does not matter. I just wear clean stuff and don’t worry about whether or not I wore the same dress already this month. The problem arises when I notice that I have come back around to a specific dress or shirt in my ‘rotation’ and I can’t wear my tried-and-true favorite necklace with it. See, I’ve already worn the favorite green beads with this…and the (less favorite) fuchsia ribbon. I wore a favorite turquoise glass necklace already this year as well, just not with this dress but if I could have I might have grabbed it today.
I know this does not really matter.
Most of the time, even when people comment on my outfit or the jewelry I made I’m pretty sure they couldn’t tell me what I wore yesterday much less last Tuesday. After all, I can’t remember what they wore yesterday. I remember their conversation, and what they were doing, or where we were when we talked, but not their wardrobe.
Sorry, fashiony friends.
Now, this doesn’t mean I don’t think clothing is important. I do. It needs to be comfortable and functional, of course, but I also think it can be a wearable expression of your interior self. At the same time, I really hope that it’s not the ONLY expression of your interior self, if you know what I mean. I hope you don’t define yourself as a consumer, but as a creator. We humans have been wearing some kind of clothing for 500,000 years and we have an inherited all that urge to gussy ourselves up and look fancy. Except for the last 48 years or so when commercially-produced clothing became available most of use have CREATED those clothes for ourselves.
I’m a big fan of artist Alex Martin’s One Brown Dress project and she wrote elegantly about this topic here.
Oh, back to the necklace:
Three strands of Swarovski crystal chain at 16″, 17″ and 18″, all attached to the same magnetic clasp. There are charms dangling from each strand: a cast-pewter safety pin, a crystal drop and a tiny metal sprocket. No meaning behind the charms. Yes, I realize this makes the entire thing just fashiony fun. At least I made it.
Mica. It’s a naturally occurring mineral that appears clear because of the careful alignment of the silica crystals. In parts of the northern U.S. the sheets are available in streambeds where they shimmer like silver under the waters. The lightweight, transparent nature of this mineral is very compelling to me. The first time I saw sheets of mica I immediately wanted to make jewelry with it.
Who wouldn’t?
First, it matches everything. Second, it’s lightweight. Third, it looks sharp and kinda dangerous.
This necklace looks like shards of glass, hinged together at odd points. I pierced the mica sections and set them with teeny dollhouse hinges using rivets and eyelets. The mixture of chain sections along the back and side include brass and sterling silver and the design is finished with a hook and ring clasp. This necklace is lightweight and comfortable and I like to wear it on days when I feel my outfit needs a bit of an edge. All those sharp, broken-glass looking shards seem too dangerous to wear but relax, they aren’t sharp at all.
For instructions on how to make a similar style see this tutorial.
Today, I mixed this knife up with a necklace made from a LORiOLA acorn and another one created by Tracey Johnson, a Raleigh jewelry artist and the one of the best right-hand-women I know. I’m going to wear them again, so I’m not showing them to you now. Plus, the blog technically starts tomorrow. Ha!
365necklaces 