Catching Pearls and Iron - Honouring the old by making something new?
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Left: The original. Right: The final.
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Hmmm... That looks like it was done by hand, I think as I spot a bright red bracelet and my hand bravely ventures into the tangled vines that make up the thrift store's jewelry section.
The thrift store is hardly a rare location for me. I take pride in being a thrift junky. I love finding treasures among the ruins. Sometimes, the things found shine as bright as diamonds. Other times, they look like they belong on a midden heap. My initial thought is that I found the former but, when I withdraw the item, I am not sure that it isn't one of the latter.
The bracelet's backing is made using of seed beads of inconsistent size (supposedly the same size but definitely not). Onto this, a variety of nuggets are attached. Some of the nuggets seem to be proper stone. Other red ones are some sort of resin and scratches have marred them and dirt is burrowing into them. Even if this was not a problem, the over all colour combination is 'interesting'.
Is it ugly? Is it beautiful?
It is not to my taste. However, taste varies and some careful tugs on the bracelet show it to be strong. Good workmanship and, as I have yet to make anything with netting technique, I am intrigued and I am not beyond buying old jewelry, then selling for a greater price.
(In the past, I have had guilty feels about this last thing, but I eventually came to the conclusion that antique brokers and art dealers do it. As long as I make a point of saying I am not the original artist... and I am planning to fix this bracelet up before reselling.)
Inevitably, I shell out the $5.99 for it and take it home.
One week later, I fish it out from my Hoard of Doom (TM).
Hmmm... I think. First, things first: remove the scratched-up red resin beads.
Instantly, things don't go to plan. The red beads do come off, but so does a number of the other protruding beads do as well as the entire beaded toggle clasp (and *sigh* naturally get sprayed all over my floor). They are all on the same thread with apparently little in the way of extra security. I could fix this. I coooould, but I am not the biggest fan of the other beads and feeling extremely slightly guilty, I proceed to remove them all.
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Left: In case you don't know what a toggle clasp is. Right: I'm not going to crafter's hell for removing those beads, right?
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It leaves me with the bare netted-back minus the clasp. It doesn't look half bad with just the back and that leaves me with two possible plans:
Make another toggle clasp and call it a day.
Sew more beads on then make a clasp.
Naturally, because I am a masochist, I pick #2, and because I am anal about picking the right beads. I haul out nearly every kind I have and, because I am a clutz, manage to decorate my floor with a goodly many of them along the way.
When they are properly set before, I end up stuck. I know that I want the protruding beads all be in one colour as I felt that the variation of colours in the backing was more than enough. However, I still have a number beads that would work but can't settle on one. In the midst of this, the ghost of guilt due to disassembling someone else's work is casting its pall over me. Surprisingly, this helped me.
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Tiny fraction of the beads I considered.
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The original protruding beads were of many different sizes and colours and I have quite a variety of shapes of hematite. The shapes are nowhere near as varied as the original ones, but I like to think that by using them and purposely having them randomly arrayed on the seed bead backing, I will be honouring the original work and so its creator in some small way.
I also decide to add acrylic pearls to the work. Why? Firstly, I like the variation they add to the mix. Secondly, they have been sitting in the hoard for almost a year and need using up. Secondly, hematite, being made from iron is heavy, and by filling up some of the piece's space with light acrylic means that I am less likely to sprain someone's wrist by proxy.
When you finally find what you're looking for... I keep on feeling that there ought to have been stars and birdies floating around those beads.
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I would like to say that everything went smoothly from here on. That I didn't have my beading thread get so hopelessly tangled with the diamond shapes at the sides of the work that I had to redo vast section hundreds of times. I would like to say the former didn't also happen with the protruding beads and my thread at least as often. I would also like to say that the previous crafter's thread wasn't a thick monofilament that meant that getting my needle and thread through the beads was a huge nuisance. This thing did not cause me break multiple seed beads which didn't mean I had to scrounge matching beads and thus redo EVEN MORE of the work. I would like to say that modifying this bracelet did not take nearly three times as long as making a new one. I would like to say that all the previous did not mean my swearing provided a brisk musical accompaniment to my crafting.
I would like to say that.
So I will.
Everything went smoothly from here. I didn't have my beading thread get so hopelessly tangled with the diamond shapes at the sides of the work so that I had to redo vast section hundreds of times. The former didn't also happen with the protruding beads and my thread at least as often. The previous crafter's thread wasn't a thick monofilament that meant that getting my needle and thread through the beads was a huge nuisance. This thing did not cause me break multiple seed beads which didn't mean I had to scrounge matching beads and thus redo EVEN MORE of the work. Modifying this bracelet did not take nearly three times as long as making a new one. All the previous did not mean my swearing provided a brisk musical accompaniment to my crafting.
One last thing on this subject. There is most definitely not a stick protruding from where my nose should be and it is most certainly not growing as I type this.
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The bracelet from Hell. An easy bracelet to make.
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Whatever erroneous rumours you may have heard on the process of making this bracelet. I am pleased with the final result and I'll likely make other bracelets in this style.
If the original crafter sees this, I hope they do not begrudge what I have done and I would like to thank them as I likely never would have made it if not for them.
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Now for sale at my Etsy store.
