I have this obsession with black and white. I like the starkness, I like the metaphor. I had a handful of large white and black glass stones glued to fabric, waiting to be worked on, because when I originally started beading, I saw those stones, and knew that someday I would want to make something out of them, but more immediate projects prevailed and those stones got set to the side, all but forgotten. While cleaning out my sewing kit, I ran across an onyx heart that I had kept for years. Just like that, those stones I laid aside had a new playmate.
With the frustration of using the nylon thread fresh in my head, I waited until I could take a trip to my local beading store and pick up some Fireline. I want to create a piece that I would not mind selling. I was a lot happier with the resulting bezels after using the Fireline, but the beads are still not where I want them to be.
So I had all these components, but no clear idea on what I wanted to do with them. Four white stones, three black, and the black onyx heart.The color combinations were not making me happy at all. I tried to add an AB blue to the whole mix. Was not working. Just straight black and white looked to plain. Looking at the stones I kept seeing the moon in new and full phases, and I kept thinking it needs stars. But what color are stars?? Gold was too warm, and I had no silver. I started thinking again about the Million points of light necklace. When I started that project I bought plate warmers in black, and used them as beading trays. When the clear beads were on that plate warmer, they looked like tiny diamonds. I used them to finish the last two rows of my bezel, and finally the colors were in place.
I bezzeled all the stones, but I was left with this heart, and it was an irregularly shaped heart at that. The back of the heart is not flat, so gluing it to fabric did not seem like a prudent idea. I had originally planned an open backed bezel. I'd read about starting the bezel with right angle weave and wanted to try it. I am glad I did. All the frustrations of trying to guess that magic number of starting beads became completely unnecessary, as did the multiple restarts that technique required. After starting it was just a lot of trying to figure out where to increase and where to decrease.
As I worked the back of this bezel, I noticed that the tension on the back helped the irregularities in the front. I ended up just doing a beaded back. There is definitely a bit of wonkiness to the heart, but examining the other pieces, I saw that they had the same type of irregularity. I blame the beads. In fact as I started working on embellishing the other stones, that issue seemed to work itself out.If you closely examine the ones that are done and the ones yet to be done in the picture below you can see an example of what I am describing as "wonkiness".
I still had no clear idea of what I wanted to do with these stones after completing the heart's bezel. I knew I wanted to tie in the heart shape of the onyx stone So I started playing with different lengths of very tight fringe all the way around one of the round stones. there is no movement at all involved with the fringe. They are more like spikes. They give a little, but do not move on their own. As I played, I realized that I could make a suggestion of a heart using the fringe. After 4 layers of fringe, and some embellishment, I ended up with these components below, in various states of completion.
It is about at this point that I ended up running out of my Fireline. I have not had a chance to pick any more up yet so this project is kinda on the sideline, waiting. A close up of one of each of the black and white hearts:
The new fireline I got is white, I am thinking about taking the fringe off the white stone, and using all white line on the set of white cabs.
The most notable thing about this necklace so far is that every time I end up finishing one of the components, I end up rearranging what the final configuration will be. This necklace has morphed and grown almost like it has a mind of it's own. Every time I think I have at last got the final layout done, something changes. I can't wait to finish this one!
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