A chronicle of the meanderings, false starts (which in retrospect, while sort of embarrassing turned out to be highly instructive), epiphanies, selective apathy (still evolving), wild mood swings, opinions (subject to frequent change), and life lessons of an inveterate dabbler (and her latest dabblings).

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Spiraling out of Control



OK, this is my third and last spiral pendant. For now. Had to practice after I watched Sharilyn Miller's "Ethnic Style" DVD (did you know you can hammer the crap out of worthless foreign coins and make your own dangly things?)--made a pile of spirals in copper (trying to make two identical ones for earrings, took me about six tries) and one in silver (how nice, it only took about SIX FEET of 16 gauge wire.) Finally got to use my itty bitty slate pearls, and had an excuse to buy the 4-foot strand of silver pearls at the bead store. You're probably going to be seeing a lot things with silver pearls now on this blog. For a couple of years. ("Oh look, a silver pearl trivet. And a keychain. And a belt buckle. Is that a tiara?") There are two more little sterling silver spirals joining the strung portion of the necklace to the hand-forged sterling silver chain. I got lucky with those--I'm shocked I got them the same size.

I attempted a square spiral and a trapezoidal spiral (I was going for a teardrop and couldn't execute) in brass. Mmm. Not so much. Maybe I will make them into key chains for the recycling guy and his girlfriend. I did these funky impressions of a split leaf philodendron in brass too, and oxidized them to dark brown. I might have to do the obvious and use them on a strand of chocolate brown pearls. With smoky quartz. (I'm in the grips of Monochrome right now. Time to head back to the Color Palette Generator. Hard not to pop a Sahara Desert photo in there. "Oh, look at all those lovely shades of Sand Beige!!!" Or Sahara Desert at Night. "Oh, look! Black.").

I will make earrings based on this same design, if I can produce two more little spirals that are the same size. Wish me luck.

7 comments:

  1. Love it! Great hand forged chain! 6 feet of wire? wow

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  2. keirst!!! what a wonderful piece!! i'm totaly in love with these beads!!!!they looks like your pics for "artistry of lune " here on the right.. but grey!! they are hypnoticals!! (do this word exist?? LOL) and your spirallllllllll.... you know what hypnotizers use to say?? "you only hear my voice, look at my spiral, 1.2.3 paf !!
    very beautiful!!!

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  3. just kidding about the six feet. that was hyperbole. I didn't measure it when I did it (couldn't figure out how to do it), but I guessed later using pi x diameter of each spiral. Had to Google that, too long since high school. turns out it was about only 13 inches. FELT like six feet.

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  4. p.s., "hypnoticals" should DEFINITELY be a word. Like a pharmaceutical word. A class of drug. Thanks Esther!

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  5. hee! Silver pearl embellished sneakers? Those coin pearls are pretty awesome though :)

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  6. Wow! You were busy on this one. Love the pendant and all the elements go so well together. Beautiful piece of art!

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  7. I do so love those spirals you have done...and I can honestly say that I never tire of pearls, so bring on the tiara, sister! I feel a beading party a happening! Enjoy the day! Erin

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