How it's made?

Hello Dear Steemitians ,

In today's post I want to show You the next stages of creating one of the larger necklaces I've ever done. Necklace made of several impressive natural stones based on delicate openwork braids made of soutache strings sewn on the collar made of zirconia tape.

It all started when the Pantone Color Institute, who does preaching colorful trends, chose the conductive colors for 2016- ROSE QUARTZ i SERENITY. Right at that moment I realized that in all my creation history I never used such colors at the same time. I have never felt good at combining pastel colors. It was a kind of challenge for me. In my works, I usually manifest myself with intense often extreme combinations of colors. This time it was different. It was toning, prudently and romantically. Even the stones did not inspire much emotion. However, the final effect exceeded my wildest expectations. Unfortunately, I never broke my barrier to pastel colors and the necklace is the only thing I've done in this color. My works are full of rainbow colors and nothing will change that.

So back to work on the necklace …

However, the color inspiration is too little to start any work. It all starts with drawing the general form of the necklace, spreading the colors and preparing all the materials that I can use when creating the product. It often ends with just a few of the most important stones from among a thousand other gems.

Another thing I do before sewing is the exact sketch and layout of the colors. This is one of the most important things in the whole process. If you want to do something well, you need a good plan. It's the same in this situation. Firstly, this is done so that the work goes faster, secondly, a good layout of the strings allows for a nice and aesthetic finish of the work, third and last we can see the planned final effect of our work and correct errors after it we sew.

When the most important things I have prepared, the design of the necklace and selected materials. I'm starting work. Sewing starts from the main and the largest elements of the necklace, remembering to leave a certain amount of string left to create further swirls connecting individual elements.

Each stone must be precisely trimmed according to the previously planned pattern, at the beginning we must remember the aesthetics of the things being done. If at the start something overlooks, for example, visible glue on the stone and strings or badly and crookedly begin to sew, the final effect may not be satisfactory anymore and every recipient of our work will notice our mistakes.

You'll probably think about “what glue?”

When preparing materials, every stone, crystal, cabochon must be glued with some material and well protected so that it does not fall off during use. For this purpose, appropriate strong glue for jewelers are used. And the materials on which such an element is placed are, for example, felt or various types of skin. Depending on the preferences of the creator.

When every element is already trimmed, I slowly and meticulously move to join the elements together. The most important thing is to combine all the main elements with each other before creating other swirls, complementing the free spaces. I create a kind of skeleton on which the remaining openwork forms are based. The whole structure must form a coherent whole, so that the necklace is destroyed

The last element I made was a collar, on which I fastened the entire openwork form of the necklace. I made it from a zircon ribbon wrapped in soutache ribbons. As a clasp I used strings sewn together to create a loop for beads. This type of clasp is used most often in his works. It is the safest, effective and very comfortable to use. For this it gives the possibility of length adjustment.

When the necklace is sewn the only thing that remains is the aesthetic finish of the back of the necklace. You can create an effective back from the cords masking all the ends or glue the elements to which most ends of the string are glued. Unfortunately, I did not immortalise this part of the work in the pictures, but I promise you that in the next job I will definitely tell you all the secrets of finishing the soutache products. When the back is finished and everything nicely and thoroughly dried up the necklace impregnates with a special preparation for impregnation of various types of textiles that protect the material from dirt and moisture. This is very important, because braid is a string that catches any dirt with which it has contact, for example, powder or self-tanner. By using such impregnation, dirt does not penetrate into the structure of the string and it can be easily cleaned under warm water. Of course, if we care about such jewelry properly, such dirt does not take place.

Now we only have to take and process photos. After many hours of work, we can enjoy the self-made object. Every such work gives me great satisfaction and pride that I have met all the requirements that the product set for me.

Now I can share this joy with you too. I hope you like the final effect as much as I do.

Please, let me know in the comments, what do you think about such a color?
Would you wear such large and impressive jewelry?
And do you like such theatrical jewelry?

Thank you for coming to this place.
I hope you enjoyed the article.

Regards Kasia Voitak