{Rolling Blog Hop Challenge} Christine of One Kiss Creations

A short while back, I asked some creative and inspiring women if they would like to participate in a loose kind of blog hop.  Instead of everyone posting on the same day, we will post as we get our projects done, with an end of November deadline.  I send them each a package containing vintage wooden spools like you see on the upper left of the blog (badge compliments of Hope's wonderful photography and Janet's tweaking...thanks ladies~it looks great!).  I found them while antiquing in NJ.


It's my turn!
My spool ideas were all over the place.  Eventually, I had it narrowed down to two ideas and did a little sketching.  Normally, I do not sketch, but have found that when I do, I can stay on track.  I think I need to do it more often.

The first idea was to saw the spool into rounds.  I was hoping to get 4 rounds out of a spool.  I was lucky enough to get two rounds.  These suckers, as we have heard, like to break and fly.  I wanted them not completely even but even enough.  I gave them a quick sand to take away the roundness and give them subtle angles.  I used ladybugs Liz from Bead Contagion gave me, orange and yellow seed beads Cynthia from Antiquity Travelers gave me, dyed howlite flowers I picked up at Michael's, red twin holes and purple seed beads I had in my stash, and green fireline I found at Cabela's on clearance.  I ran my thumb nail down it a few times to stretch it out and it softened it up nicely.  These have the flowers on both sides of the round.












Then came the second piece.
This gave me fits.
I worked up the spools just how I wanted them.  Turning it into a necklace was another story.  I seriously considered a shadow box.  Then I decided on a necklace.  I should have stuck with shadow box.  I might still do it.  We'll see.  Anyway...initially, it was strung on bamboo cord with big wooden beads.  Serious kindergarten art.  I live with it for 2 weeks and cut it all up.  Then I did what you see here.

It was when I was making the sari beads from my last post that I decided to make these cloth beads.  I was at the hardware store and picked up some annealed stainless steel wire.  I used the thicker gauge as the core of the bead, wrapped some free fabric samples I scored at an upholstery shop around the core wire, and wrapped some thinner wire around that.  The buttons are from my Gram's stash.  And some other people's Grandmas' stashes as well.  The back braided cord was from Cynthia.  I was at a loss as to what to do for the back.  This piece quite literally fell from a pile of fabric scraps and landed on my shoe.  Perfect!

The spools were the first part I completed.  They turned out just like I pictured them.

I used red size 13 charlotte beads.  For the three spools, I used more of the upholstery fabric.  I sorted through my stash until I found the blue fabric.  I wanted it to be frayed and a constant fluid piece.
Spools, needles, fabric, sewing...finding stray threads and scraps everywhere.
The other two samples don't fray quite as much.  One spool of chaos is enough.
The needles are porcupine quills Liz gifted me.  Go here to read how she found them and cleaned them so they can be used in jewelry and other art pieces.  I love these!!!
I did keep some of the bamboo cord to lace these spools together and added some buttons for a dangle.










                                                                 


                                                                     The whole of it.

This was so much more of a challenge than I thought it would be.  I thought about bowing out and just hosting a few dozen times.  But I am glad I saw it through.



If you haven't already, please go see the other spools that are posted:

Janet  ~  Hope  ~  Tanya  ~  Maryanne  ~  Bobbie  ~  Cynthia  ~  Lisa  ~  Liz  ~  Kim  ~  Cynthia again  ~  Karin

Erin  and  Therese   will post theirs in the next week or so.  I really cannot wait to see what they came up with, but it will also be a little sad knowing when they do,  this Rolling Hop is over.  You all have made this so much fun!  That is what this is all about.  Fun, smiles, with a little bit of drool here and there.  Thank you Ladies ~ this turned out better than I could have imagined :-D