That Jolie Girl

Necklaces by Request

A year or so ago, I made my mother-in-law a necklace with amethyst beads.  She liked the necklace so much that she requested more necklaces in different colors.  I'm always up for a project and was happy to oblige.  From the beads I had on hand, I made her a Rose Quartz necklace (left) and an Aventurine necklace.  I gave her the necklaces this past Saturday.   She loved them!

Here is a close up of the necklaces.  The rose quartz beads where smaller, so I used a finer silver and did more wire wrapping to secure the bead.  The Aventurine beads were bigger, so I used a bigger gauge of silver and didn't wrap the beads.  All in all, I think they turned out well. 

Ohm Necklace

I bought this Ohm pendant for my Aunt.  I didn't want to just send the pendant by itself, so I made the beaded necklace to go along with it.  It was very simple.  There is something about the instant gratification of getting a necklace and getting to wear it immediately.  My Aunt emailed me on Friday that she received it and loved it.  That makes me happy!

Commissioned Work

The computer dude at my work asked me to make a pendant for his girlfriend as a Christmas present.  He wanted one that had earth colors and the letter A for her name.  I made two pendents since you never really know how things will come out of the kiln.  I ended up giving him both pendants, but the top one was definitely the best.

So I actually made money off of a pendant.  It's my first sale as Short Fuses.  I'm happy with how the first one came out.  Due to his request, we are now going to start making alphabet pendants.  First we will start with the easy letters: A, E, F etc.  Then we will figure out how to make the harder letters that have curves to them: D, B, G etc. 

Here is the pendent off to it's new home.  The computer dude said his girlfriend really liked it.  I love happy customers!

Back From Vacation!

It's 2006 and the holidays are officially over!  As much fun as they were, it's nice to be back to my regular routine.  I was on vacation from Christmas until New Year's Day.  It was so great to relax, enjoy the holidays, and to just do fun things around the house with my husband.  We read, played games, worked on crafts.  It was a great way to see out the old year and bring in the new year.  I am so much more relaxed that I was 10 days ago.

I had brought home a ton of brown paper from work to use as wrapping paper.  I have a hard time buying the real stuff (such a waste!) and my family is use to getting presents wrapped in Willamette Weeks, so the brown paper was a step up for me.  My cat loved playing with the paper.  He built himself a little fort.  Below are pictures of the things I made for Christmas this year.  It's nice to actually be able to blog about them now that they are with their new owners.

I made the two scarves above for my cousin and his boyfriend.  My cousin got the blue scarf on the right and his boyfriend got the grey scarf.  Each is almost 6 feet long.  I did a basic k2 p2 for the pattern on size 13 needles.  The yarn is thick and very soft.  They will definitely keep you warm.  They got sent all the way to Korea, where my cousin is living. 

My niece and Mom both got i-pod socks.  I think I'm done making i-pod socks for awhile.  It seems like that's all I ever knit.  Time to branch our more.   My niece's is the top sock and my mom's is the bottom sock.

I used this pattern for the i-pod sock.  I used size 5 needles and reduced the number of stitches to 36.  It seemed to work well, although I probably should have reduced the number of stitches to 32.  I used a chenille yarn, so it's super soft.

I made the amethyst necklace for my mother-in-law and the rose quartz for my soon to be mother-in-law.  Both are made with sterling silver wire.

This necklace for my niece was a trial of love.  I ended up making the thing three times.  I  didn't have a set pattern, but got the pattern for the hemp knots from Beadage.  This picture is the first version.  I wore it and it just didn't hang right.  Having the cord across the back of the glass pendant made the necklace hang down, so you didn't get a good view of the pendant.

This is the third version finished.  I put the little red beads closer together.  I also started the necklace at the middle and worked my way out.  This way I avoided the hemp at the back of the pendant.  It hung very nicely once that middle part was removed.

This is the finished piece from the front.  I made the glass pendant as well.   I really like how the whole thing turned out.  I'm glad I re-did the necklace to get it exactly the way I wanted it.

I made these rooster earrings for my Secret Santa pal at work.  She is really into roosters and even has a rooster tattoo.  These were just too good to pass up. 

For my mom, sister, and mother-in-law, I made these earrings.  All got different colors.  They turned out really well.  I also made myself a pair.

Short Fuses is the name of the business my kiln partner and I are starting.  Our goal for 2006 is to get a web-site up and start selling stuff.  This is a rough version of our logo.  Please keep checking back.  Once the site is up, I will be linking to it from my blog.  Side note: The paper is left over from my wedding invitations I made five years ago.  Sometimes being a pack rat comes in handy. 

Kiln Fun

This is the latest bunch to come out of the kiln.  I love this top piece so much.  It was made by putting a copper swirl between the glass.  I didn't expect to get that crazy air bubble.  Unfortunately, this will be a one of a kind piece.  I don't want to make any more for fear of damaging the kiln if the glass bubble broke.  I can't wait to wear this piece. 

Here I used tinfoil for the flower inclusions.  I don't like the look of the tinfoil.  It didn't turn out the way I had hoped.  I wanted it to remain a silver color.  All I got was a burnt metal look.  Now I'm back to using copper.  Hopefully, I will be able to find some other silver to use for inclusions. 

Here you can really see how bad the tinfoil looks.  These are half inch squares.  Oh well, it's all apart of the learning process.  My partner and I filled the kiln the day after Thanksgiving, so I will hopefully get those pieces tomorrow.  I don't like the waiting process, too much stress.

I did make progress on more Christmas presents.  I can't wait until I can actually post pictures of the presents.  I still have so much to do.  There aren't enough hours in the day.

Productive Weekend

The most exciting thing I did the weekend was see Paul McCartney at the Rose Garden.  He put on an amazing show complete with pyrotechnics.  My husband is a huge Beatles fan.  He thinks that Paul McCartney is the best lyrist ever to have lived.  This was his second time seeing Paul and he loved every minute of it.  The highlight for me was hearing Blackbird followed with Eleanor Rigby.  Two of my very favorites. 

The rest of the weekend was spent gluing backs onto my fused glass pieces as you can see above.  I am wearing the earring/pendant set pictured below right now.  I really like these a lot.

I was also able to complete three Christmas present projects this weekend.  Unfortunately, I can not show pictures quite yet.  The next two months are going to be filled mainly with getting presents finished.  Once Christmas is over, then I will post pictures.

Practice Makes Perfect

I got to work on more glass this weekend.  I'm trying to figure out some specific patterns that I can make to sell.  I'm  going to turn the small green and purple half inch squares into earrings.  The rest will be pendants.

As you can tell from my work, I'm really into geometric pieces.  I like everything to fit into place.  I'm not big on making abstract pieces.  Which works out well since my kiln partner loves the abstract.  We make a great pair.

This pictures aren't the best, but I was so excited to have finished products that I didn't want to wait to post these.

I love the flower motif.  These were practice pieces and I will definitely continue to refine.  I will use thinner stringers for the stems.  The red in the top piece was suppose to be a flower pot, it kind of ran to one side, so I need to work on that.

I would love to hear feedback from people.  The goal is for me and my kiln partner to start selling some work soon.  The dream is to be able to do nothing but jewelry.  I know the dream is well of into the future, but every little step counts.

My First Fuse

I finally got my pieces out of the kiln.  I'm really happy with them.  The one in the middle is a one inch square, to give you a feel for how big they are.  I was just experimenting with different things trying to find some styles that I really like.  These will become pendants hopefully this weekend.

I am finding that some techniques work better than others.  My goal is to set up a store and sell some pendants soon.  I think I'm finally ready for this next chapter to begin.

Breaking in My Kiln

I finally have made some pendants to be fired in my kiln.  This is the first crafty thing I have done in a long time.  My friend and I are going to start having regular play dates to make items to be fired.  Hopefully if we are on a schedule, we will actually start to be productive.

Here is a close up of some of the pieces I made.  They haven't been fired because I didn't want to burn my friend's house down while she was on vacation.  Once they are fired, I will put up pictures of the finished product. 

The Old Becomes New

My grandmother was known for wearing big gaudy pieces of turquoise jewelry.  She had a ton of the stuff.  After my grandmother passed away, my sister asked my mom for a piece of her jewelry.  My mom presented us with two huge necklaces.  This one above is only a fraction of the necklace.  It's five strands across and easily 26 inches long.  It was massive and also falling apart.  So with my sister's blessing, I decided to take apart the jewelry and re-string it into something that is actually wearable.

I made this piece for my 11 year old niece.  It's 15 inches long and everything, excluding the clasp, is from the necklace above.  My niece loved it.  I'm going to also make her a necklace of just the brown beads. 

I made this necklace for my sister.  Again it's all from that first necklace and it's 16 inches long.  I made the necklaces this weekend and didn't have time to make my own.  I'm hoping that in the next couple of weeks I will have the time.  With the amount of beads from the two necklaces, I should be able to make at least 5-6 necklaces.

Making these pieces has been really special.  I just finished a book called Four Souls by my favorite writer Louise Erdrich.  In this book, Margaret has a vision to make a medicine dress.  She talks about spending time with the dress and while creating it she can reflect on where all the different parts came from and their history.   I feel the same way with spending time with my grandmother's jewelry.  I'm creating something new while taking the time to appreciate the  memories that are associated with these old turquoise beads.