I Did A Thing, Vol. 25

I’ve written about this before, but I am at my happiest these days when I am making something with my hands. I think crafting has overtaken reading – gasp! – as the hobby that brings me the most contentment. I am loath to describe myself as a “creative” in any real sense, but the act of making stuff is my true passion. While I still adore my library, my current home dream is to have a little art studio. [Think I can talk my husband into giving over our garden shed to me? Or maybe building a new, less spider-filled one? Hahaha!] If money were no object, I would pick up painting, pottery, and metalsmithing in a heartbeat. I want to make things! All the things!

Alas, real life requires me to scale down my dreams somewhat, and make do with what skills and supplies I already possess. Jewelry is something I’m obsessed with at the moment, and while I don’t have the means to make stuff out of metal and stones, I have a few other media at my disposal. Mixed media pieces intrigue me so I have been exploring the possibilities of combining my embroidery and beading efforts.

I jot down my ideas, in sketch form, in a notebook to keep track of them. I call these “prototypes” but they’re more along the lines of very embryonic designs. Most of them never progress past that point, but I like to revisit them from time to time; sometimes, an old idea sparks new inspiration. The next step is to mock up a life-size version of the design on paper, and then go from there. I like using a medium thickness felt as the “backing” – or canvass, if you will – for my pieces because it’s still workable with a needle, but sturdy enough to provide some structure to the piece.

The first piece I’m going to show you today started off as a putative harness. The logistics of that defeated me, so I put the idea aside, and re-fashioned the piece as a bib. It turned into a very large bib, but having already cut the felt (big mistake), I didn’t want it to go to waste. I like large jewelry, so the size wasn’t a problem from an aesthetic perspective, necessarily … but I didn’t reckon with the amount of time and effort it would take to embroider/bead by hand.

Hours.

Hours and hours. And hours.

About half way through, I gave up and put it aside for the sake of my own sanity. Weeks passed. I worked on other craft projects in the meantime. But the piece weighed on me. I’d already made a big investment – in beads alone – and it felt like a waste. So I pulled it out and looked at it with fresh eyes. Didn’t hate it as much. Decided to plunge on.

Hours and hours later (probably close to 50 in total), I was finally done.

I’m proud of it as a first effort, particularly as a matter of perseverance. But I wanted to get a little more adventurous.

For my next effort, I decided to incorporate fabric and reclaimed jewelry into the mix. I covered the felt with material scavenged from a J. Crew skirt I thrifted; the fabric was a beautiful abstract floral brocade shot with gold thread – almost like a painting. It’s the perfect backdrop for my embroidery, and I used beading to pick up some of the colours and add some extra sparkle. I also added an enamel pin (thrifted) to enhance the maximalist effect. “More is better” is my guiding philosophy with these pieces; I’m aiming for a riot of colours and textures in every piece.

The chain here is also reclaimed from thrifted costume jewelry. The upcycling aspect is one of my favourite parts – you guys know how much I love finding (or, in this case, making) beauty from the trash heap.

Emboldened by my experiences, I decided to keep experimenting. This photo from the A/W 2019-2020 Stella McCartney collection (courtesy French Vogue) provided some serious inspo:

I had a large metal ring I planned to incorporate into my next project, and I decided to wrap it in yarn and use it as a connector/feature piece.

I’ve been having a lot of fun making these pieces, and friends have even started giving me scraps of old jewelry to upcycle. The only drawback is that I have more ideas than time but … onwards and upwards.