Rosy Ribbons

Vintage inspired beaded ribbon bracelets

I love the fashion for wrapped bracelets and my Huckeberry Buckle workshop is all about beaded ribbons and embellished buckles. I can now confess that when I first designed it was a working 'in theory' idea.
A beaded ribbon is not like a real ribbon, it is rigid, it takes up space, it needs to have room to move and it definitely hates being pushed in and out of a buckle repeatedly.
What followed was a search for a neat and dainty, yet everso discreet clasp that I could include in my design, getting me past the technical hitch stages and back into gorgeous design territory again.
Happily the 'in-line' clasps, which I now have in my little store, are perfect for any narrow beaded bracelet designs and have proved really popular. At shows I have a demonstration bracelet, which is a double or triple length wrap bracelet... can't tell you how many times I've been asked for the pattern!
So, the pattern is now included with all orders for in-line clasps, it's also to celebrate that I have a new colour of clasp in store now, to go with matt vintage bronze finish and shiny silver plate there is now a slinky dark shiny pewtery gunmetal colour too...mmm

Divine iron inspiration

a mystery to be solved

I love a good bit of door furniture, and it doesn't come more divine than this over the top creation discovered in the Bishop's palace at Wells. I'm also rather keen on that nice muddy paint colour too. What I find delicious about this ornate door handle is that it is utterly beautiful, yet surprisingly uncomfortable to actually use... some fiddlesome door funiture for fine fingered clerics... argh! couldn't help the alliteration there!

I'm finding that I keep coming back to this image not because I want a door like this, but because it is tickling away at a couple of ideas.

The first is for the beady alternative to the metallic bronze, silver or gunmetal, my staple metallics so far. I have put in a request with Miyuki for an antiqued copper (so far they have a nearly OK one but only in size 11 seeds and not the same in 15's)...  most of the gold beads are all just too gold, brash and harsh, so I love the pale as straw colour of the metalwork in my picture. The door paint is another colour I keep seeking. I have just a pinch left, they are matt, mushroom grey and add gravitas to all other colours, but obviously out of production, sigh!

I also return to this image because it's so 'homage to' Pugin. Divine symmetry is snapped off and the keyhole aligned to a gap in the tracery, rather than designed for this particular door... so was this a piece of Victorian Gothic envy? Pugin was responsible for influencing a generation, as architect of six cathedrals and forty churches, whereas this ecclesiastical building had already been standing for 700 years. I suspect that someone might just have sneeked in a few twiddly bits to keep up with fashion.

Finally I love this image because it is singing pendants, bracelets and other design ideas which are safe in my sketchbook until I have beady time and some pale gold beads.

Tangerine and duck egg blue

Harmony by Shelley

I adore, I drink in, I cherish. I think my love of colour may have had a starting point here...These  Harmony Dripware ceramics from the Shelley Pottery belonged to my Grandmother and now my Ma.
What they are is really not at all important, how they feel, silky, how the colours glow in different lights, first warm, then cool. How from all the different blends of colour in the range some discerning ancestress was drawn to this delicate and perfectly balanced mix of dove grey, duck egg blue, tangerine and burnt orange. Utterly of their period and yet timeless... these are the completely important things.
I like the way the eye traces their shapes, and how they live together, the comfortingly fat bellied ginger jar, the narrow topped volcano vase and the open throated conical vase, easy colouring book shapes. It pleases me hugely that they can be re-arranged to create shapes and shadows. I probably stared at them, as a tired/bored little girl, in a yorkshire 'best china cabinet' in the parlour, I know my eye often wanders to them as a grown up daughter visiting my Ma.  I've yet to find the beads in these exact shades... maybe I could be invited on a colour mixing trip to Japan?... or maybe they don't exist except in these glazes for a reason. So just share with me the joyfulness of this little bit of eye candy.

detail from ginger jar

Detail from conical vase

inside the ginger jar

Day trip to Wells

Cloister, Wells Cathedral

I love going to Wells, the saturday street market is great, lots of really good food stalls too. But this time, we decided to be tourists and visited the Bishops Palace and grounds. How weighted with history are these sheltered and moated grounds. Most of the centre of Wells is like a film set for a medieval or gothic drama, specially f you know which alleys to wander through. The twin towered cathedral is huge and solid from the outside, etherial and timeless inside.
The palace grounds are beautiful, peaceful and calming in the soft English sunshine. There is the little bell that the swans have learned to pull at a certain time, to be dutifully fed through a window above. Or you can go play Robin Hood on the ramparts overlooking the moat and the Bishop's see, as in see all that? it belongs to the church, see?

The Wells pool with the Cathedral beyond

Also in the grounds are the Wells. This is the water source for the whole town.
four million gallons of water a day bubble up in several different spots on the floor of this pool, it is mesmerising to watch. Yes, technically springs, but called Wells in this spot for as long as anyone can remember... undoubtedly a Somerset thing.
So I love the sense of history, I am comforted by the longevity of the buildings, the continuity of worship and ritual, even by the stories on the memorial plaques that bring the dead back to us as real people who strived and achieved, or not, just as we do. But just tickling away like a naughty whisper is... why did they build the church on top of the only water source in the region... and the awful feeling of knowing exactly why.
Back in the sunshine, we sit and enjoy coffee and I doodle some motifs to add to my collection and the story about talismans. Here are two of the pieces that began the idea.

I was educated in a convent school, which I loved and hated in equal parts. One summer then nuns were told to hand in their large ornate and very gothic crucifix pendants, which were to be replaced with smaller far more modern brushed steel crosses that were almost not crosses at all. I could see that some nuns were profoundly upset to loose their iconic talismans. Not comfortable with having to build a relationship with a new symbol. This momentary glimpse into lives which held so very few possessions gave me an insight into the subject that has become a fascination in my work.

Eye for Scrying

Scrying Compass

One of these two pieces will be a workshop next year, I've worn it a lot and have finally resolved how to offer a class without making everyone french knit a cord with very fine crochet cotton (! labour of love alert!), as I explore this theme more the shapes for the symbols resolve and rearrange. This will be a fun class too as we get into multiple layers and some really cute beaded end caps.

Vintage chintz

Spiral Garden

Sometimes things are really crazy simple... when up till now you thought they were complicated. OK so one of the top all time fave designs that people like to buy is called Spiral Garden. It's a double helix spiral with a daisy chain decoration...
plus I show you how to join up double helix rope to make a continuous loop for bangles and necklaces. I love this design, I've made myself and my friends lots of different versions to wear over the years. It is genuinely a constant source of happiness for me that other people really love it too.

So there I was trying to work out an idea, and hit upon the most simplest ever way to make a garland of beady leaves and flowers spiral, without even trying. Gasp! I was so excited and eagerly tried it out on my 'not very good at beading' tester...
Aww! heartless you I hear you splutter into your coffee. No, not at all, she's a nearly beginner and loves to try out my designs and is perfect because she shows me all the places where I'm just assuming you'd know how to do stuff, which is really easy to assume if you already know how to do it... Oh c'mon, I pay her in beads too!
She loved the pattern too, which is sometimes how a new design is born.

Summer Garland, vintage pink

I've called it Summer Garland, inspired by Garden fetes and country weddings, cream teas on mis-matched china, and time worn favourite floral cotton dresses. You can see that once I had the design sorted out (the original sample, for reasons I won't get into, was bright yellow, navy blue and orange), I just fell in love with mixing up some retro inspired colour combinations.
So come and join the garden party, Summer Garland is available as a pattern, as a kit in vintage pink or vintage blue, and with additional materials packs too.

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy