Earring Mania and the Cambridge Folk Festival 2008

Sorry guys, I've not had much time, spent it all at the Cambridge Folk Festival last weekend, and then I needed a couple of days to recover and finish some commissions. My Etsy Shop is going fairly well at the moment (knock on wood this is a trend) and I'll have to upload some of the new stuff very soon. (If I tell myself often enough I might actually get round to it).

The folk festival was great fun (check it out here) and I saw some bands which I really, really enjoyed. The ones I liked best (in no particular order) were:

Levellers, Allen Toussant, The Waifs, Richard Hawley, Cherryholmes, Eliza Carthy and most of all Eric Bibb. If you're interested, most of them are presumably on Youtube.com.

The food was great too - I love Jamaican curried goat with plantains. (Sorry, if you're vegetarian.) There was so much different food and all good - from plain chips with cheese (or Cajun spices) and bacon rolls to vegetarian burgers, Greek meze, to Indian, Chinese, Carribean and Japanese food there was something for everyone.

The nice thing about the folk festival is that it works well for families. The kids are safe in the compound and there's a playground where they can hang out whilst their parents are listening to music.

There are 3 stages, one large, one medium and a small club tent. The music fits under a very generous 'folk music' umbrella and everything from country & western to blues and anything else that vaguely fits in is being played.

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I did manage to make some earrings to go with my Nightblooms flower garland and my Nightblooms bracelet:



I am quite pleased with the way they turned out. I've used 20 gauge half hard sterling silver wire and threaded some of the burgundy and black silk rod on it, interspersed with purple beads and a black matte bead at the bottom. The wires are bent in a sort of oval shape and the silk has been 'feathered'. They look quite stunning on.



Below are some recent earring purchases. The first two I bought recently at the Open Studios here in Cambridge from an artist called Gina Gherardi:

The earrings are both made from handpainted silk petals threaded onto sterling silver wire and interespersed with glass beads. Although my nightblooms earrings were inspired by them, they look very different, where mine are curvy and fluffy these are far sharper and with more precise detail.

Here are the teal ones close up:


Here are the black ones close up:


Finally, I bought the most beautiful Heartleaf earrings at the folk festival. The jewellers had a stall there and I could not possibly resist these earrings:

The detail and the smooth softness of the design is just so beautiful. The craftmanship shows and they are lovely and heavy, not flimsy at all, whilst maintaining the feathery light feel of a real leaf.


Check out the Silver and Stone website for more delectable jewellery.