A story of a shoe...

The most frequently asked question about this piece of mine is "Where is the other one?". The answer is - it is in the progress. Please do not ask when it will be finished.... ;o)

I made it for the Battle of Beadsmith 2012. It is a Facebook group started by Steven Weiss of the Beadsmith company (which needs no presentation, right?). Last year I was too busy to blog about it, but now it is 6 o'clock in the morning, hubby is on his way to the airport and kids are still in bed - with another words it is a perfect time to blog.

So, here is my Freya. More info can be found on WiKi, but the point is that Freya is a norse/viking female deity, sometimes taking bird form. I figured, what speaks Norse better than grass-green colors and ice-cold labradorites? For a contrast, I added some amber (guess it looks like real resin on trees). ;o)

Here is my shoe.

                           


And this a nice photo of a Swedish forrest that I have found on the internet, its owner is Erik@http://erikhorned.wordpress.com/.

                           
The shoe is not embroidered, it is beadwoven. I was weaving and sowing the beadwork onto the textile almost simultaneously to follow the shape of it. Feathers were kindly donated by a rooster, totally violence-free.

My SIL was taking these pics with her fancy camera and my blond Swedish MIL has offered to be a foot model.

Enough talking, here are the pictures:

It went quite well in the battle for me and my Freya. We came to the second round and then lost to a runner-up of the entire contest, Ann Braginsky and her amazing Valkyria: http://alona-stoev.livejournal.com/106856.html

This year - new battle. I have an idea....

I work-work... I work-work...

Hi, dear all!

All over the sudden the stars came into a favorable alignment, providing me with a combination of aa free moment, enough energy, will to write, and caring enough to keep my blog going.

I am not kidding about working, though - guess I shared with you my career change. Bye-bye research career, hello working in management. And my boys are growing and require quite some attention. And, finally, I am taking care of my health and working out several times a week. All that means that I do not bead every day anymore. But my heart does still belong to beads.

For those who would like to meet in person this year, I will have a exhibition together with Anna Lindell in Stockholm in May the 11-17th, more info coming later. I will be also teaching classes at Bead Lovers Meet in Lund in March 8-11 and Beader's Best Fair in Hamburg in August (http://perlen-poesie.de/en/one-kind). Guess there will be more exhibitions and classes, but those above are definitely set.  

Well, enough writing. Let me show you some beads in action.

The pictures below are from a commission I had last summer. I met this lady at my first Stockholm exhibition. This necklace went all the way to Russia, and I am very glad for it. The given task was: rose , silver and greys; ribbons instead of a clasp and Art Deco inspiration.

This is my palette - rich rose-pink rhodochrosites + 24K white gold Delicas, sterling silver-plated beads, freshwater pearls, some Bohemian 3-cut seed beads + diverse japanese seed beauties. 

This is my focal. I like shopping at this Etsy store: http://www.etsy.com/shop/mygemgarden2. The owner does great job on those cabs!

This was one of my first sketches, but the customer preferred one below:

                           

To us both it was more Nouveau than Deco, but oah well ;o) It was a pleasure working with this customer, she has a great taste!

Here is the final look:

A friend has suggested to call it "Ashes of Roses", and guess it is quite an appropriate name for this necklace. The roses of rhodochrosite are surrounded by silvery grass, lilly of the valley branches and some simple leaves. 

And here be some close-ups:

I am happy for this creation of mine, it's owner will take a good care of it.

'Nuff for today, folks! See you around, however uncertain how soon... :)

HUGS!
Olga