Pages

Saturday 30 November 2013

Granada Pendant

 
 
One of the Christmas presents I received last year was Beaded Fantasies by Sabine Lippert. The first design that caught my eye in Beaded Fantasies was the Granada Brooch but I wanted to make it up as a pendant. So I had to work out how to add a bail to the design. For my first version, I improvised a right angle weave band. Here's how I attached it to the back.
 

 

For the colour scheme for this piece, I started with hand-dyed satin cord (colour #55) from Accent Bead, which I used for the Kumihimo braid and went from there. The components are a crystal gold shadow 14mm rivoli, copper 4mm bicones and bronze 6mm pearls.

I wanted my second version of the design to co-ordinate with the kumihimo braid I made for  Crystal Burst Pendant last year. I started with the green sphinx 14mm rivoli, which I already had in my stash then added topaz 4mm bicones and dark green 6mm pearls.


There are loads of examples of the Granada design on the web and I found this version which gave me the idea for the triangular bail. This was an interesting design to do and the back is almost as pretty as the front.



Monday 4 November 2013

Another Beaded Poppy Brooch


Earlier this year I heard Pam Kirk,  the designer of the Beaded Poppy Brooch I made last year, was asking for beaders to make a poppy for a memorial wreath project to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the 1st World War, so I thought I would join in . The wreath will consist of approximately 441 poppies, which will be one poppy made for every member of the British Military personnel lost in the current Afghanistan conflict since 2001.  You can read more about the project here.