Jewellery Japes

It was the last class on my short jewellery class yesterday.  I've made impressive amounts (impressive to me anyone, perhaps not to anyone else) especially since I've made very little outside of the ten hours of class time.  I showed you the first pieces on the blog here and here , but would urge you, if you wanted something lovely to wear to look here and either buy something or pester Raquel to run more classes! I just wish that I was better at photographing my pieces!

 This set is made with lilac tiger tail, silver crimp beads and clear 'crystals'.

These show my first attempts at stinging beads - very fast! 

We tried both cotton and faux leather.

This set used multiple strands of black tiger tail and experiments with leaving some 'loose loops' to add additional interest.

And this necklace is actually a set in itself - there are clasps at each end of the chain, allowing you to choose one, two, or three strands of different lengths.  I really like this idea of giving the wearer more choice, and would be tempted to go a little funkier on the longest third string in the future.  I think that this is my favourite so far, but I've enjoyed learning the basics of this craft, and thinking about how to put other ideas into practise in the future.

Now I need to tidy the surfaces in my craft room, and get to work with fabric and thread again - I'm still struggling with 'Megs Garden' (my lovely flower tree with the unlovely saggy areas).  I thought that I'd managed to get a solution by hooping it on an embroidery hoop, gathering bagginess into circles, and was then planning to FMQ around this areas before making them a 'feature'.  This has proved to be a bit tricky, though, as I can't get the quilt and embroidery hoop under the machine needle, and if I take the hoop off and loose that lovely tension over the surface, it doesn't act as I want it to.  Grrrr!  Time for another try, or to perhaps work on something else whilst I ponder another approach!