Fleurs tissées/Chainmaille flowers

Une autre création en tissage d'anneaux de jonction en argent .925, qui m'a pris une journée entière de travail, car ne comprenant vraiment rien aux tailles/diamètres/épaisseurs recommandées (et j'en passe!) des anneaux pour tel ou tel tissage ou projet, j'ai fait la seule chose que je pouvais: J'ai pris mon fil d'argent, une épaisseur seulement, ma petite scie, mes petits doigts et plusieurs tailles de mèches de perceuse, et j'ai enroulé, scié, enroulé, scié... jusqu'à ce que je me retrouve avec une pile d'anneaux de tailles différentes. J'ai construit et défait au moins 5 fois la même fleur (trop rigide, pas assez rigide, anneaux trop petits/trop grands, etc... ), pour arriver, tard hier soir, aux boucles d'oreilles que vous voyez ici... Je les adore!!

Another chainmaille creation, in sterling silver, which occupied my entire day yesterday...Since I'm totally impervius to the diameters/thickness/AR/springback/whatever/ recommended for such and such a weave, all I could do was to grab one gauge of wire, my saw, several drill bits and coax my fingertips into coiling/sawing/coiling/sawing...until I got piles of different sizes jumprings. I constructed and undid the same flower about 5 times (too floppy/too tight/rings too small or too big, etc...) and ended up, late last night, with these sweet little earrings...Time well spent, me thinks... I love them!!!

Merry-Go-Round

Jump on our first ever Blog Merry-Go-Round and join a group of artists/crafts women as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft... Here's how it works: every month, we all blog about the same question, which this month is: What was the journey to your craft?

You can read all our answers in our respective blogs:

http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com/

http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com/

http://fancypicnic.blogspot.com/

http://lilypangart.blogspot.com/

http://florcitasart.blogspot.com/
http://halfanacreblog.blogspot.com/
http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com/
http://blog.glamasaurus.com/

And here's how I started crafting:

About 5 years ago, I stumbled quite by accident upon an evening silversmithing class, which was taking place at the college I was teaching Foreign Languages at the time. I joined, and never looked back... I have been making jewellery ever since.

The class was a revelation for me: I never really 'crafted' before, and I found making things with my hands immensely enjoyable, and my brain, which totally craved learning new skills (instead of teaching them!!), was swimming in pure bliss, in a kinesthetic environment...I threw myself into it, made tons of mistakes, enjoyed then the 'making' more than the 'designing', now the opposite, and I always wanted to know more, make more, change styles...So I taught myself wire wrapping and beading techniques, recently tried chainmaille, and plan to explore PMC in the near future... I'm sure, one day, my craft will come together... :D

Here are a few of my creations...

More chainmaille/Deux mailles de plus...

Continued with the therapeutic chainmaille, fingertips are now developing thick skin...But can't stop!! I'm addicted!! Two new weaves: Byzantine and Tryzantine. Deux nouvelles mailles: Byzantine et Tryzantine...Je continue mon apprentissage, ce 'tissage' est vraiment therapeutique, une vraie drogue!! :P

Chainmaille

I've tried chainmaille today for the first time and had a WHALE of a time! I thoroughly recommend it! Check out http://www.mailleartisans.org/ for tons of fantastic FREE tutorials, articles and info on this ancient technique (weaving jumprings)! I made the jump rings from scratch, friction-burnt a couple of fingertips in my frenzy, and was totally amazed with the results! The weave started up as a 'quarter persian', to which I added a ringto every 2, my first chain was way too floppy... Aujourd'hui j'ai essayé quelque chose de nouveau... oh, nouveau pour moi, mais la technique est hyper ancienne: chainmaille! Les chaines sont faites d'anneaux de jonction uniquement. Je me suis amusée comme une petite folle! Visitez leur website http://www.mailleartisans.org/ où vous trouverez des tutoriels GRATUITS, ainsi que des articles et des infos. J'ai coupé les anneaux moi-meme, (Ah, mes doigts, je ne les sens plus...)...Que pensez-vous du résultat?

Cadeau/Present

My lovely 60 something year-old neighbour found out only yesterday that I make jewellery, barged in and demanded to see the Easterya collection...She was so sweet, I had to give her something, and she chose this necklace, she said the agate leaf will help protect her heart...Ma voisine, une gentille dame de 60 et quelque, a appris juste hier que je fabriquais des bijoux...Elle est arrivée en trombe à la maison et a demandé à voir toutes mes merveilles...Elle est adorable, et j'ai voulu lui faire un cadeau...Elle a choisi ce collier, car, m'a-t-elle dit, la feuille en agate protègera son coeur...

Blog Award

The lovely Ruth of Birdlandcreations on Dawanda nominated me for this award today, despite my laziness to post on a much more regular basis...Thanks Ruth, this is the kick up the backside I urgently needed!! L'adorable Ruth de Bordlandcreations on Dawanda m'a nominee pour recevoir cette recompense...malgre ma paresse et mon manque de posts! Merci Ruth, c'est le coup de pied qui me fallait!

The award needs to be passed on to 6 other blogs, so I spent a wonderful time tonight looking up and choosing some of my favourites, here there are: Voici les 6 blogs de mon choix qui valent vraiment cette recompense, allez y faire un tour...

http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com
http://thewireartisansguild.blogspot.com
http://lilypangart.blogspot.com
http://sybile.net
http://www.isabellasart.com
http://www.souslamansarde.com

Have a look!