Bubbles

Okay, the AGM yesterday......

Every year there's a Secretary's Challenge and guild members are challenged to produce a piece of work on a particular theme. As the guild members include workworkers, spinners, embroiders, potters and many more the entries are varied. This year the theme was 'Holes and Cavities' - maybe Sue (our Secretary) had been to the dentist? - and I was determined to enter something this year as I hadn't done before. As I've mentioned just a few times before I've been practicing my soldering and I've had an idea for a double chain with large round hammered links floating round in my head, so I decided to give it a go.

And 'Bubbles' (below) won!

What do you think? The chain and the clasp were hand fabricated, soldered and lightly hammered, and I decided that some beautiful lampwork by Izzy Anderson was perfect for the theme as the beads contain 'bubbles' of fine silver. It's a long necklace - 25.5" with 1" extender chain (about 69cm in all). I've cut the rings for a matching bracelet and for a finer version of the chain too, so I'll be soldering again this week!

I've also soldered frames for a butterfly and a daisy shaped woven wire pendant. I've made a butterfly before without soldering the frame and I'm expecting that a soldered frame will make life easier when it comes to wrapping the finer wire around! The butterfly below was pictured in the second issue of Beads and Beyond magazine. I put it in one of the galleries that displays my work and some lucky girl was bought it for Christmas!

I haven't decided what stones to use in my new butterfly - unless I have any requests/suggestions I guess I'll see what takes my fancy tomorrow!