Catch up on January

Wow what a month January was! The outstanding thing of course, was the snow. Here in Norwich we had probably 10 inches in all, but it all came down in three parts within a week, unlike some other parts of the country who got that much in one night! Once again the council got it wrong with their gritting and left it too late. I was in the city centre having coffee with a friend when the second lot came down, that's when the gritters were told to go out, but unfortunately, everyone else decided they'd better go home, so the city became gridlocked, the snow froze as it hit the roads and any roads on hills (such as they are in Norwich) were rendered impassable and dangerous, and closed. Well done the Police on getting that lot sorted out. Buses were cancelled, so a two-mile trudge home through several inches of snow (which had fallen in an hour) was the order of the day. It all looked so beautiful though as you can see.

Unfortunately, this also rendered my poor partner housebound for yet another week. We've only just got the ramp for his wheelchair built, used it for two days, then the snow locked him in again. Cabin fever isn't the word.

Anyway, I needed no excuse to stay in and craft. I've designed a bead embroidered collar for a competition later this year, and ordered the beads. Sadly I can't show you that, as the competition rules state it must be unpublished, so fair enough, you'll have to wait! (it is lovely though, using three colours from this year's spring/summer pantone, with celtic design.)

I've also been busy with my polymer clay. I decided to expand a little on the millefiori technique, which I began first with turquoise and bronze petal cane slices on black background, and produced this necklace.

I made a few other pieces but I wasn't happy with them. To be honest I wasn't entirely happy with the bails on these, but they are secure and uniform, so I put it up on Folksy and it sold within the hour!

So, to build on the success of that, and while I was still buzzing from such a quick sale, I did the same again in fuschia tones, and did more than just one necklace.

 

I plan to do some 'primrose' pieces in a similar style, in fact, that was what I was going to do next, but as usual I got waylaid by something else...lace canes. So easy to do, simply roll a light colour into a log, cover it with a contrasting darker colour, roll and cut 7 equal lengths, arrange 6 of them around a centre one, reduce, roll and do it again, reduce and hey presto!

I didn't take a photo of the cane itself, but I made this gorgeous necklace from it. I don't usually use colours as they come out of the packet, but I so love the sculpey purple..

I've since made a teal coloured necklace, well two in fact, the first didn't have enough contrast, but that's for my next post, along with my forays into metal leaf! Ohhh yes!!!