Made from scratch

Being a few weeks into my Jewellery Design & Making course at the art college in Plymouth, I thought it was about time I showed off my only (half finished) piece. The first five weeks have been all about techniques, so we've been looking at soldering, wire work, using a rolling mill to create texture and a few other things.

The rolling mill was great fun, and I found that it was a great way to combine my love of hand drawn type with jewellery - you can basically emboss designs on to metal using a paper template, so cutting words out of paper and rolling them between sheets of metal works really well. My friends Ami and Jonny had just had their first ever little person, so I was playing around with her name, Beau. This was just a little experiment (hope you like it Ami & JK, shame I didn't get it made into anything more finished).

Using paper and the rolling mill again I made this little fella for my Gran. When it's finished it'll be a brooch - she loves owls, barn owls in particular, so I can't wait to get it finished and give it to her! I think she'll be chuffed.

March is jewellery month

Of all the things left to me by Annie, the one thing I treasure most is her set of mahogany drawers. She salvaged them from a skip in the 70's, and filled them with things that didn't have another home. The drawers are still full of the things she put in them - dental floss, buttons, allen keys, nag champa, paintbrushes being a few of the bits and bobs. I've claimed a couple of the drawers, but they're mostly still a bit of a shrine to my lovely mum.






















After having a good old rummage through the drawers the other day, I decided to make some earrings using some of the bits and bobs that I found. First up is a pair made from vintage buttons, and the second are made from whatever I could find...

The take over has begun

I'm scared by how busy I've been recently! It doesn't come naturally to me - anyone who knows me knows that I'm pretty lazy, I like my bed, and I would love nothing more than to spend all day in my PJs. The new job has really taken off in the last month though, I haven't had a spare second to myself! So the creativity has suffered...
I have, however, started an evening class in jewellery design and making, and I'm loving it! I promise I will post some pictures of the things I have made so far in the next couple of days...

I'm mainly concentrating on hand-drawn type and incorporating it into jewellery. Something I got into over christmas (with a little inspiration from Liv Bargman and a book on Polish papercutting) is the loveliness of papercuts. Thankfully this really lends itself to metal work, whether it be through piercing or embossing stuff - both of which I've had a go at, and I'm really pleased with the outcomes....watch this space....

Numero dos from the Moonbox...

This beautiful little jacket is so fragile that I could never bear to wear it. It seems so wrong to have this attitude - almost an insult to the nimble fingers that sewed it - but it's so delicately hand sewn that I'm convinced it would fall apart with one gust of Plymouthian gale force wind.

It's two layers of antique silk, with a Japanese (?) design coming up from the bottom. I've no idea where mum found it, but I know I never saw her wearing it, probably for the same reasons that I never will. What to do with these gorgeous things? I want to hold on to them forever, but that doesn't really fit into my plans for the next few years - I'm planning to get rid of everything before I move from this house.

Maybe I should change the description of this blog...

I'll admit it, I've become sidetracked from the original aim of this blog! The cataloguing of Annie's stuff has been put on hold whilst I learn to sew... after all, I don't want to butcher any of the beautiful things in the Moonbox.

Armed with my trusty christmas Waterstones voucher I invested in Dorling Kindersley's Sewing Book, a veritable bible for newbies like me. I also spent some christmas money on getting my mum's 40 year old Bernina sewing machine serviced by the nice little old man in Saltash. And then came the sewing (and it's all about polka dots this week)...

First up I altered an old dress that didn't fit me across the chest (thanks, Gran, for those genes!) to make it into a full circle skirt. I got so many compliments when I wore it out!


















Next spotty project was a tote bag to cart around my work stuff... This was a big bit of polka dot fabric that I think my aunt gave me years ago. I padded it out with very thin wadding, and lined it with green polycotton (I cheated and bought that!) Don't think I'll be wearing the two together...

For Bobbi

Not strictly from the Moonbox, but made by me all the same... Made for Bobbi from fabric we bought in Brixton a few years ago. The silver and turquoise beads are both Thai, and the waxed thread came all the way from an amazing haberdashery just off Khao San Road in Bangkok. All so that Bobbi, a born traveller, can wear a little bit of the world!

Numero uno from the Moonbox

Well I got everything out of storage back in November, and as Jon and I had only just moved into our new place I didn't really have a look at what I'd got in terms of fabrics. Last week I rooted through them with the lovely Susie, and we came across some absolute gems!

First up is this little dress - it was mid calf length and quite an unflattering fit. So I put some darts in the bust, shortened it and finally made a couple of ties for the waist out of the left over fabric. The dress looks like it was handmade and has an ancient looking label in it, but I don't really know what era it's from...