Not the Colour

I suppose I complain a fair bit about my lack of photography skills, and yet truthfully I'm not entirely ashamed of the pictures I share, since they are infinitely better than the awfulness that fills my teenage photo albums. Seems the viewfinder and I just couldn't communicate all that well, as I have scads of photos of fence or sky or hedge with a head in the bottom right corner.

I love digital cameras with little screens and the ability of software to crop.

Magic.

At the same time, although I suppose I think fairly well of my ability to declare something (clothes, jewellery, a building, a garden) pretty or ugly, and although I think I have a sense of when a painting is well-composed, I can't always tell how best to compose a photo that displays a beaded item to advantage so that the whole is pleasing, and highlights the balance and composition of the piece as well as interesting or attractive details of workmanship.

So this necklace built around Kerri Fuhr's bead gets two.

If I get the ends sewn in and there's a non-rainy moment, tomorrow there might be a picture of a recently-finished summer top which due to unseasonable cold I probably won't get to wear until next year.

Garments are even harder for me to photograph somehow because they don't fit on my little table under the lights where I take pictures of beadwork. They're generally quite a bit bigger (unless they're socks).

It's (for me) on the long side, with the focal bead hanging below that sweet spot right in the cleavage (such as it is - though give me a few years with continued gravity and this may be less true than it is today). I think it's almost long enough to slip over my head, but it has a button and loop fastener anyway.

I tend to be dissatisfied with these hybrid necklaces: part bead-weaving, part stringing on beading wire, as the junctions are inevitably clumsy and contrived, but I think I did a reasonable job here.

One of the junctions occurs between the spiralling rope and the focal section, and it is largely hidden by the bail supporting the drop, just wide enough to accommodate the ugly crimp and a millimetre or so more, so it's quite neat and small and unobtrusive.

The other junction is at the button, to which I sewed a shank comprising a faceted bead with a big enough hole for beading wire on which it is possible to very carefully [shock horror: a split infinitive. No matter; I like it better this way] string size 15 seeds to cover the curve of the wire as it disappears into its crimp, disguised as a bead by a crimp cover. That might be a little clumsy, but during normal wear it'll be covered by the beaded button loop. I think.