Art Elements Component of the Month August 2017

This month over at the Art Elements blog, we were fortunate enough to be able to play with some of Caroline's new starry galaxy-esque beads.  I LOVE Caroline's work.  Every new things she comes up with is my favorite new thing.  I feel so lucky to be able to work with her components and beads, much less be challenged to use them!

Even with my epic love of Caroline's work, I struggled with inspiration...until...TOTALITY!

Photos of the 8/21/17 solar eclipse, by my friend Katherine.

This year on August 21st, I was able to see a full solar eclipse for the first time in 27 years.  My job organized a mandatory viewing party, so we all got to leave our desks for a few minutes to watch the progression of the eclipse and full totality.  It was beautiful and eerie and curious.  So neat to see the birds all fly home, the cicadas ramp up the evening song, a few bright stars peep out, and all of it reverse in just a few minutes.  But during totality, I just couldn't take my eyes off the hole in the sky!  I know that in reality a black hole would not be visible, but totality looked just like I imagine a black hole would.

And so I created my own version of totality.  Carolines beads so perfectly captured the first stars peeping out so I created an environment for them to twinkle in.

I started my sun corona with a copper hoop, and worked off of it in a combination of brick stitch, herringbone, and square stitch.  This combination of stitches allowed me to make the asymmetrical halo effect that was in my head.  To add a bit more star-like twinkle, one of the rounds of herringbone has a 2mm crystal vitrail fire polished bead in between each stitch.  I love incorporating these beads because you can't tell them apart from seed beads at a glance...but the sparkle they add is eye catching.

Along with Caroline's fantastic beads, the fringe also contains lampwork headpins and a bead from Sue, along with a couple of other lampwork beads from local artists.  I wore the necklace to work today and was reminded why my favorite necklaces all have fringe with large beads in them...I love the sound of beads clacking together.

Both sides of the strap are herringbone.  One side is tubular herringbone with seed beads and bugles, and the other is a modified flat herringbone using 2 sizes of seed beads and 2 holed dome beads.

I also love doing this type of front closure lariat-style necklace.  I think of them as "gravity" clasps - where the weight of each half, and looping part of one side through the other is the only thing that keeps the necklace closed.  This also gives you a lot of variations to play with - maybe not as big of a variety as a traditional lariat, but more than if the two sides were stitched in place and a traditional clasp were used.  Plus...if you get bored you can change it up all day long

Thank you Caroline for sharing your beautiful twinkly beads with us!  Thank you all for taking the time to see what I've been up to.  I hope you will all hop along and see what everyone else has created with Caroline's lovely beads this month too...I'm off to do just that now!

Guests

Cheryl Zink

Kelly Rodgers

Art Elements Team

Diana Ptazynski

Cathy Spivey Mendola

Niky Sayers

Laney Mead

Susan Kennedy

Claire Fabian

Lesley Watt

Lindsay Starr (you are here!)

Caroline Dewison