Jan Atherton’s blog posts about jewelry design
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Four done,six to go. One of the things that I do when not working on my own projects, is repairing jewellery and custom design work. The pieces on the left are knotted on silk, or nylon threads and the pieces on the right are netted necklaces from South Africa that need minor repairs to the beadwork.
Another interesting repair job came into work this week. I’m trying to find out a little bit more about these pieces while I’m repairing a few missing beads. At first I thought they maybe Yoruba beadwork from Nigeria, but now I think they may Masai talking sticks from Kenya. If anyone knows, I would love to know more about them.
I have repaired the netting stitch on the first one and I will work on the other one later today and I’ll post another picture later.
I recently started working at Ayla’s Originals again, in Evanston Illinois. I worked there before my son Ewan was born. Part of my job is to redesign, or repair customer’s jewellery when it comes into the store.
This piece was one of those, when it came in it had been tied in a knot at some point in its life in order to shorten it and the sharp edges of the vintage 3-cut beads had sliced through the original thread in several places. So the decision was made to remake the necklace from scratch and to replace the knotted bundle of beads with a beaded bead. The bottom two photos show the necklace as it came in to the store and the middle photo and the mugshot of me show the finished piece after I had completed the restoration. I hope my customer likes it and enjoys wearing it!
I haven’t had a proper day in the studio for a few weeks now. Ewan no longer goes to Ellen’s, but it will be a few months before he starts pre-school as well. This week he is going to an art camp every morning, so I have an extra 3 hours to experiment and bead that I wouldn’t otherwise have had.
I have been taking time to try out a few new (to me) beadwork stitches – Hubble Stitch, Albion Stitch and Kumihimo with beads, but with varying rates of success. I love working with Hubble, which was originally developed by Melanie DeMiguel, I can see me using this one a lot as it has a lovely open texture and works up quickly:
The second one is Albion Stitch developed by Heather Kingsley-Heath, I don’t have a photo of the piece I have been working on yet, but again I want to play with this one some more, tension is important, or the the thread can show more than I want it to.
The third technique is Kumihimo, but I’m not doing so well with the tension on this one, the beads want to lie on their sides instead of flat and I just decided to quit before I chuck it across the room! I was like this with odd count peyote too, lots of frustrating attempts and samples before it finally clicked for me, I just need to stick with it.
If all else fails then this:
I haven’t posted in a long time, but I have kept my domain name and website, hoping that I would have a chance to blog more frequently again. I don’t get much time in my studio as I did before my son was born, but I am working on a couple of long term projects, the first one is mainly knitting – which may become a book further down the line, I’m gathering a pile of samples and graphs, and I am beginning to knit the full size samples of a few projects and I may be looking for sample knitters later on, if you are interested please say hi on Ravelry, or Facebook. The other is a collection of beadwork, the intension is to look for gallery space. I’m not going to rush either of these projects, I want to give them room to grow and evolve.
It has been a bit of a weird week for me, which is why I haven’t blogged much. Tuesday and Wednesday, I taught a couple of beadwork classes at Ayla’s Originals, both students were fast learners, and really friendly. I then spent part of Thursday beading some samples for future classes, and the evening knitting on a scarf using Estonian lace knitting techniques. I’m thinking of writing it up as a pattern, if I can find some knitwear design software that isn’t too expensive. I have also been working on peyote stitching around a group of cabochons, including some ceramic cabs from Lisa Peters and Marsha Neal. I love their pieces and always try to treat myself to a few at shows.
This was also the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon, I can remember clearly hearing about it—I was 8 years old, I must have been visiting my Grandpa at the time, because it was on an old fashioned even for 1980, spindly legged late 1960’s black and white tv. Every time I heard one of the songs I wanted to cry at the drop of a hat.
Friday was awful. I’m not sure whether I dropped my wallet, or whether it was picked from my bag, but I thought I had put my wallet in my purse, at the station, and by the time I got to the next stop it was gone. After retracing my steps, and reporting it missing—the guard at Berwyn was very helpful and kind, I phoned around canceling everything, something I could have done without.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBCdlBrgEmE
On Friday 3 rd of December, I joined friends and fellow jewellery artists, Leslie Perrino, Anne Patrick, Bill Haefling, Doug McDonald and Kearsley Stewart at the Evanston Homegrown Artists Holiday Bazaar, at The Evanston Ecology Center. It wasn’t a busy show, but it was great to spend time with everyone, and the customers we spoke to were all very friendly, and enthusiastic about the show. I hadn’t taken part in a show for more than a year, and it was a wonderful gentle re-introduction. Doug is missing from the first photo, as he was looking at something in the other room, when it was taken.
A few months ago Jeremy and I had decided to try using a credit card reader from Square. It is a small pod that you can plug into the headphone plug of an iPhone, iPod touch, or android devices. There are no startup or monthly charges, instead Square charge a small percentage for each transaction—ideal if you only do a few shows a year. We had tried a test transaction before, but this was the first time we had tried to use it in a show situation, so Jeremy came with me to make sure that everything worked OK.
Having the square, and being able to take credit cards meant that we had a few sales that we may not have otherwise had, it was worth having it with us. The Square app is simple to use—you just enter the amount and run the card through the reader. There is an option to take a photo, and add a short description for the receipt that we were able to use to include each artist’s names, on the receipt, which was great. The only problem that we had was getting a good signal for our internet connection as the Square app will not work without internet.
Yes, I have gone nuts. For today only I have a 15% off coupon, and free shipping on everything in my shop. If the piece I designed to raise money for Andrew Thornton sells during this sale , he will still receive the full amount, as I shall make up the difference.
Click here to visit my store, and use the coupon code HAMISH to receive your discount.
