Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Sea Glass and Crochet

Finally found another way to use the beautiful sea glass Alison and her children collected for me in the South of France. :-)

I will eventually be able to drill holes into the sea glass but for now I have to find more imaginative ways to use it in my jewellery.

Recently, I've been doing a lot of crochet, so using crochet to 'encase' the sea glass seemed a good idea. :-)

Below is one of the first ones I made. I've made a crochet casing from bronze coloured wire and combined it with vintage beads and a vintage seahorse charm. Since I am a strong believer that the clasp should be as pretty as the rest of the necklace I've added another simple sea glass/crochet charm to the back of the necklace.

Here's the pendant in more detail:

Below is a matching bracelet with sea glass in varying shades of green, encased in bronze wire crochet with new pale green jade charms on a vintage double link chain and a vintage starfish charm.
In more detail:

Below is actually the latest one in the crochet/sea glass series. I've used a bronze bead cap in a cone shape to attach the crochet to. A little jade heart at the bottom of the sea glass and next to the clasp finishes off. I've also used some more of the vintage double linked chain to add detail.

Here's a close-up:
The next necklace is made with a silver link chain with large links through which I have wound some silky leaf green string, which also makes the tassel that hangs behind the pendant. The pendant itself is made from a large dark green piece of sea glass, encased with leaf green wire. Detail is added with the beads in the centre - real peridot chips, a green dyed freshwater pearl and a tiny mermaid charm. The tassel hangs behind the pendant and looks like seaweed interwoven with large seed beads in shades of green.


Here's the pendant in more detail:


My friend Alison needed cheering up, so I decided to make a bracelet for her with all the lovely sea glass she's been collecting for me. Below is the first one. I've, again, encased the sea glass with crochet, but added tiny, slightly irregular clear/silver lined seed beads to the crochet. The effect is a bit like a sugared fruit. Very pretty and sparkly, but in a subtle way. For more interest I've added semi precious beads (jade, chrysocolla and aquamarine) and a starfish charm. The wire is silverplated copper, which means over time the silver will tarnish, which should mean it'll look even prettier.

Detail:

Here's the first one I made. Can't quite decide which one I like better. The technique is the same, however, I used round semiprecious beads (new jade, jade, chrysocolla, mother of pearl, and aventurine) that look like bubbles next to the larger sea glass drops.

Detail:

The final (for now) piece is my own necklace which I made with a similar technique as the ones before, however in this case the casing is mostly to one side and the back and one side is only covered enough by the crochet so it will not fall out. I've also used matching lustred Magatama drops which look like tiny drops of water .

Here the details can be seen of both the pendant and the charm at the back of the necklace.

4 comments:

  1. WOW, sybille!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    These are amazing!!!! I think i like the bottom one best, the shapes are gorgeous!
    Toby.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sybille, these are fabulous - so unusual and so beautiful. I have a weakness for things from the sea anyway, but I just love the way these look like they just washed up on a beach.
    Caroline

    ReplyDelete
  3. the crochet work is really unique. the sea glass and crochet is absolutely inspired -like sea foam frozen forever

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh Sybille, these are great! The crochet wire with the sea glass works SO well. The designs you have produced here are just the essence of sea, water, seaweed, the shapes and colours, really unusual and beautiful.
    My favourite is the last necklace, I love the way you have left a piece of glass exposed at the side, and I like these subtle colours too.

    BRILLIANT !!!!
    Penny.
    x

    ReplyDelete

Listen to Cambridge 105 FM

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...