Bead Embroidery and Viking Knit

I made this pendant when I was taking a class in Viking Knit from Joggles.  I don't always like the face cabs that are available, but I fell in love with this one.  The suggestion for a pendant that went along with the instruction was to make branch fringe around the entire cab.   I like making  branch fringe, but I knew I would get bored doing the entire piece with it, and since I love asymetry, I thought I would just do part of the face with the branch fringe and finish with a plain fringe stitch.  I used 3mm and 4mm bicones to create a double edge to  finish the pendant. 

The main focus of the class was the Viking Knit which is an ancient wireworking technique.  My daughter first introduced me to it, and I loved the process of working it, and also the finished product.  There are many ways of finishing the ends of the knit, but I chose the option of stitching peyote tubes to wrap around the ends. Unfortuately,I haven't done as much of it as I would have liked to do, but I'm planning to go back to it.  It's a versatile technique to have in your bag of tricks. 

I hope you're enjoying the end of summer.  The weather is cooling off a little here which is a good thing!

Thanks for visiting.  Have a great weekend.



Flamenco!

I've been trying to clear off my worktable so that I can have some room for new projects.  I have a hard time working with a lot of clutter around and that's what had happened to my table.  A lot of projects started and in little bowls, or on bead trays in various states of completion.  Well, I've made some progress, and this is the newest necklace to be finished.

I bought the art glass doughnut at a bead show last year.  I'm sorry that I don't remember the name of the artist who made it so that I could give her credit.  But, I loved the colors and knew I had to do something with it.   It sat on my worktable for months before I decided to combine it with a Cellini spiral.  I love the Cellini spiral, which is a bead weaving variation of tubular peyote. 

In a magazine I had seen a version of Cellini spiral which reversed itself.  You can see how cool it looks in the middle of the spiral where it reverses direction.  When the spiral was finished I had to decide how I was going to use it with the art glass doughnut.  I had been thinking of different ways of attaching the art glass to the spiral, using the spiral as a bail.  But, I didn't like anything I came up with.  After much fiddling I remembered that my daughter had made me a lenght of Viking knit from lime green wire.  I had the lime green silk ribbon and it had emerged as the best way to attach the glass doughtnut to the necklace.  I didn't want to hide any of the Cellini spiral by looping the silk over it, so I strung the spiral on the Viking knit and tied the silk to the wire.  

   

Here you can see the Viking knit wire with the silk tied in a loose knot around it.  I finished the necklace with two silver cones and a toggle clasp.  My husband and daughter think the art class looks like  girls twirling in their flamenco skirts, hence the name!  I'm really pleased with the way this necklace turned out.  I took a while to decide what to do, but I'm pleased with the result.  And, I'm pleased that I found a perfect project to use the gift my dear daughter made for me quite a while ago.

Thanks for stopping by to visit.  I hope you have a lovely day and get to create something wonderful!