Hollow Glass Bead Necklace

My little sister got engaged 2 years ago, after being with her partner 20 years!
Because she had some very particular ideas of what she wanted for the wedding it was this autumn before she finally said ‘I do’ in the Santorini sunshine.

So 2 years to prepare.  At first I had no idea where the wedding would take place, but I expected it to be pretty special.

I bought a dress that could do summer heat, or cooler weather.  And I started playing with ideas of what jewellery I could make to wear with it.

First was a long glass sliding necklace, which is lovely and worked with the neckline of the dress.

But I couldn’t help thinking about a necklaces I saw someone wearing on TV years ago and if I could replicate something like it.  So I started trying to make hollow glass beads in teal, to match the dress.

I made many beads.  Practice makes perfect right?

But then at the beginning of this year, finally knowing the destination for the wedding – the Greek island of Santorini, I changed my mind about the dress.  Now we were looking at white linen trousers and a pink top.  The new neckline wouldn’t work with the sliding necklace and the teal wouldn’t work with the pink.

But I still really liked the hollow bead idea so I switched from teal to rose.

I also wanted some spacer beads.  As I was taking pottery classes at this time, I ended up making some tiny ceramic beads which Jack kindly fired in his kiln for me.

With a week to go before the wedding, as I started to put the necklace together I realised that one of the beads was a different colour from the rest!  I’m sure no one else would have noticed, but I would know, so I went back into the studio and made 5 more beads in the hope one would be the right size and shape.

Luckly one was and I was able to put the necklace together, along with a clasp I made from silver wire, just in time to pack and jet off.

Can you tell which one doesn't match?

At the same time I also made myself some beady earrings.  I was very happy with the first pair I made, however, I then worried I’d used the wrong colour again (it's very hard to tell colours apart when I wear my safety glasses as they have a pink tint) so I made another set of beads.

I was expecting the earrings to be exactly the same, but when I put them together, rather than the biggest bead being at the bottom as in the first pair, I had it at the top!  Oops.

 

Having decided that they were all the right colour, I now had the issue of deciding which I liked best!  I ended up with the pair with the biggest bead being at the top.

With glass wrapped up very carefully we made our way to Greece, where we got off the plane to 31c!  But the wind soon came back and cooled things down a bit, and so the wedding itself wasn’t too bad at all.

The glass survived the travel and the wearing and I was very happy with the finished item.
I still need to practice my hollow beads.  They are not an easy thing to make.  But I’ve got a beautiful necklace that I’m looking forward to wearing again in the future.

 

Experimental Cyanotypes

 

Following on from last weeks blue post, more blue!  This time cyanotypes rather than indigo.

Most people will recognise cyanotypes as a dry process where the light reactive solution is painted on the paper and left to dry before objects are placed on top in the sunshine to leave marks and then the paper is rinsed leaving a (hopefully) pretty blue and white print.

Starting the reaction

So this summer I have been having a bit of a play with this.  But I also signed up for Natalie Day's online Experimental Cyanotypes course which showed me how to play with cyanotype wet.

In this instance you apply the solution to the paper and add things like salt, lemon juice or vingar straight away and stick it outside to see what happens.

After a couple of hours

 

In this case the paper doesn't get rinsed as this would remove the salt etc and stop the reactions.  So you have to keep an eye on it as it changes.  If there are any bits you like it's best to take a photo there and then as it will keep changing.  It was quite remarkable seeing it change.  Even days later the colours were still changing.

After a couple of days

 

Once again (like the eco printing and indigo dyeing) this is a process where you really have no idea what might happen.  You just have to put it out there and be open to what happens.  I loved watching it as it changed and the colours that came through were brilliant, but with all these processes I think I will struggle a little to decide what to do with them as, hard as I try I do tend to be quite outcomes led.  I will need to leave myself time to play, rather than worry about what comes out I think.

If you're interested it's a great little course, giving you all the information you need to have a go and some ideas of what you might do with it too.  I'm glad I signed up.

Natural Dyeing with Indigo

 

What better way to end the summer than to learn how to use indigo for dyeing!

It was a damp grey day at the end of August, but it wasn't raining yet when I arrived at Farnham Museum and their lovely garden room, to learn more about natural dyeing with indigo.

The workshop was run by Ginny Farquhar and Sam Jones and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Woad

 

We started by learning a bit of the history of indigo and the fact that there are quite a few plants around the world that produce blue dye.  Then we went outside into the museum garden to meet the plants we'd be working with - namely Woad and Japanese Indigo.

Two types of Japanese Indigo

 

Here we picked some of the leaves of both and Ginny and Sam showed us how to get colour from the plants straight away without a vat.  While not as intense as the colours we'd be using later, they were still a very beautiful blue.

 

They then showed us how to set up a vat for dyeing.  Vats require 3 things.  A source of indigo, something to create an alkaline environment and something to remove the oxygen from the mix.  The last thing you need is patience.  You need time to leave the vat to settle.  Then when you start dyeing you need time for your fabric to oxidise between dipping - more dips gives you a deeper colour.  This is not a fast process, but it is very satisfying.

 

After lunch we learnt how to do shibori to make patterns on our fabric before starting to dye them.  Using a selection of glass beads, threads, rubber bands and clips we were able to create different patterns as the indigo only sits on top of the fabric, rather than being absorbed into it.

 

This was great fun and with a bit more experience you'd be able to have a fair idea of the outcome I think.

We each had three cotton squares to work with, which each needed two dips into the vat, with time to oxidise between.

 

While we did this Ginny was dipping sample squares to show the build up of colour and how intense it gets.  By the end of the day we all had a sample sheet showing all the different colours we'd achieved. 

 

We also had the option to dip some of our own material if we'd bought any along.  My neighbour June had been having a sort out earlier in the year and gave me some silk, which I'd bought along.  So one piece went into the indigo vat scrunched up to create a cloud pattern which I adore and the other two went into the woad vat to see what would happen.  They came out a really beautiful pale blue, although I do wish I'd been able to use the vat earlier when it was making a more purple colour.

 

But that's the point of natural dyeing.  You never know what you might end up with.  You can do everything the very same, but if you do things at differnt times in the season, the plants will act in a different way.  The fact we had a very dry summer probably has something to do with the colours we got too.

 

I very much enjoyed this workshop.  Ginny and Sam were so generous with their knowledge.  I really want to know more about natural dyeing in general and following on from the Eco Print course I'm thinking about where in the garden I can include more dyeing plants.