Hand Embroidered Pendants

I did it again.  This is way too much fun.  Now I need to get the etsy ball rolling evidently, and pricing?  I have no idea.  What would anyone pay for one of these?  Seriously.  What would you pay?

EDIT - My etsy shop is up and I've got a few lil treasures up there for sale.  Necklaces are generally $25, earrings generally $20 (unless there are some costly semi-precious stones in the mix), and I take special orders for an additional $5.  Check me out! Owls & Octopi on etsy. 

embroidered pendant necklace

 

Admittedly, my embroidery skills are slightly less than on point, but apart from that little foible this darling necklace turned out just as I'd hoped.  A little bit grandma, a little bit spunky.  I used a vintage hankie as my fabric for this, which sounds nice ("vintage" is a good buzz word), but it also provided a simple template to follow with the needle.  I have a bunch of these hankies that are gathering dust anyway, and I liked the flower pattern on this one.  I honestly just didn't trust myself to come up with my own pattern.

This necklace was whipped up in a relative jiffy.  The needlepoint was the most time consuming part, and you're really limited there anyway because of size.  I spent about an hour sewing, and the rest took 20 minutes. 

I followed the hankie's pretty flower pattern with embroidery floss (two strands only) and cut it out in a circle shape with about 1/4-inch+ of extra fabric around the edges of the image.  

I had an antique bronze pendant circle frame that I got from the craft store, but I needed something sturdy and not too thick to wrap my fabric around.  I ended up flexing my super-resourceful muscles and used the plastic base from a reusable grocery tote.  I've used this stuff before to make brims on knit hats, and it works really well.  It's bendable but makes a good form.  I'm sure there's a product out there designed specifically for this type of purpose but this was free.

I cut the plastic stuff into a circle that fit inside the pendant with a thin gap around the edges.  That will allow the fabric to fold around and still fit within the metal frame.

Unfortunately my form is black and my fabric is white.  I didn't want the black to show through, and I also kinda wanted to give it a pincushion look.  So I used a bit of thicker white fabric to stick between the two.  I cut it slightly smaller than the plastic form.

Here's a picture of my assembly line.  I decided to try hot glue, with a Plan B of gorilla glue.  The hot glue worked, so I never had to try Plan B.  I glued the white fabric to the plastic base, then put a drop of glue on top and centered my needlepoint over it.  I flipped it over and carefully pulled it taut around the edges and glued it down.  

The hard apple cider was my helper.

Then I put a glurg of hot glue inside the metal frame and stuck the fabric circle inside. It fit perfectly and so far has stayed put just fine.

Ta-da!

Another shot for art.  Lookit the hankie I destroyed!

And the finished necklace.  I harvested the chain from an old ugly necklace, stuck a few jump rings on one end and a lobster clamp on the other.  And it's beautiful!

La Vie en Rose Necklace

This sweet lil piece of neck fancy has been making my eyes happy every time I see it.  The color combination, the delicate chain, and that pretty little pink rose are all just so...precious.  To look at it, you'd like that maybe I bought it for a chunk of cash-money.  'Cept I totally did not (well, the component parts, which were not much).  This pretty is handmade, sucka!

The rose bead is from the local big box retail craft store giant, and I think it's resin or something.   The turquoise beads were in my stash and I can't remember what they are but I know they're semi-precious stones and they're faceted and adorable.  Then there's a thin gauge silver chain, some silver-plated wire, and silver-plated jump rings and lobster clasp.

The turquoise beads are secured individually on the wire, and then a loop is wrapped on each side.  You end up with a bead with two little closed hoops on the ends.  These are connected to each other using a jump ring, repeated until it's the length you want.  I went with ten beads for each side of the necklace.

The rose bead has a hole running length-wise, so I used one of those wires with the stopper and one end.  You could also use a length of wire and melt your own stopper using a torch.  The rose is front-heavy and the hole was slightly bigger than my stopper, so I used two cranberry-colored beads on either end to secure it.  Wrap a loop on the top, and attach it to the two lengths of turquoise beads with another jump ring.

You could certainly keep going with the beads and jump rings until it's the length you want, and then attach the lobster clasp and call it a day.  But I wanted a little variety, and I didn't want to use up all my beads on this one necklace, especially knowing that some would be hidden on the back of my neck (and likely getting caught in my hair).  So I attached a bit of thin gauge silver chain, which ends up starting just above the collar bones.  The chain is cut to the length you want (I went on the long side because that's kinda been my fancy lately), attached to the beaded sections using a jump ring, then attached to the lobster clasp with yet another jump ring.

Bingo-bango, a lovely and very feminine neck fancy.  I love how the cranberry beads just kinda peek out from behind the rose like they're shy.

Round Oilcloth Tablecloth

I'm pretty excited because I finally dusted off my sewing machine last weekend and got down to some serious bidness.  I bought the machine nearly 10 years ago and it's been sitting in a closet ever since.  Never been used.  I lost the manual long ago.  Shameful.  But then, YouTube tutorial videos!  I got it set up and going the other day and now I'm positively giddy.  I've got some big plans.

The most pressing was the need to foil my toddler and de-grossify my kitchen table.  It's one of those standard round pedestal tables with an oak top.  Though it's small, little leaves fold down on the sides, which makes for a couple of nasty gaps in the top that like to collect dried food and other assorted crap.  You just can't get in there to keep them clean.  Regular tablecloths are not a viable option, because LAUNDRY.  So I ordered some oilcloth from an online fabric store and cut rounds to fit my table.  Oilcloth is awesome.  It's durable, waterproof, and comes in lots of really pretty patterns.  I especially like the vintage-looking ones, and got three different florals and one gingham.  I learned that pre-made oilcloth tablecloths are really expensive, but it only costs about $6 per yard to buy the material.  And you don't even need to hem it.  Seems like a no-brainer.

The plan was to put the oilcloth over the table and just wipe 'er clean after each meal.  But the toddler thought it was hilarious to yank the tablecloth off the table during meals (probably part of the reason I wasn't using a tablecloth to begin with).  An elastic band sewn around the edge fixes that issue by securing it to the table.  Because I was so daunted by the sewing machine collecting dust in the closet, I hand-sewed the first one.  It took me a total of TEN HOURS to finish.  And caused some pretty serious callouses.  After getting the machine set up, the second tablecloth took me TWENTY MINUTES.  Sheesh.

To complete this project, I cut my oilcloth into a round that measured about 3 inches bigger than my table.  To make the cut as circular as possible, I folded the oilcloth square into quarters (inside out, so you're looking at the back of it), and measured out from the center fold with a fabric measuring tape, holding a pencil at the end.  I drew the quarter-circle with the pencil while holding the measuring tape taut.  Then cut.  To sew, I stretched the elastic tight while feeding it through the machine, and kept it held about a half-inch from the outside edge of the circle.  It doesn't have to be exact, as that part will be under the table.

My recommendation is NOT to hand sew it.  That was terrible.  However, to do that, I stretched the elastic and pinned it to the oilcloth in a spot about 2-3 inches away from the current stitch, then pulled it tight with each stitch until I reached the pin, then moved it another 2-3 inches away and repeat.  Again, don't do that unless you absolutely have to.  Cuz again, it sucked.

The chairs are also recovered using the blue gingham oilcloth.  It's a lovely, simple pattern that's complementary to the various florals.  That's an easy project that I'm sure anyone can accomplish with a screwdriver and a staple gun, but again the oilcloth makes the chairs wipe-clean-easy, while the previous covers had been nasty and stained.  Always a good thing with small children in the house.

So, toddler foiled.  My kitchen table is kid-proof and looks lovely!  Take that, little boy!