Thursday, January 7, 2010

You Want Me to Make What?

It's times like these that have me wondering if I was always this bloody impatient or if it was the advent of the Internet and email that caused it. I generally concluded that I was always impatient, but I was aware of the limitations of communication and I accepted them. So instead of wondering why someone hasn't answered my message in an hour or so, I simply used to start get antsy in a week. Regardless, I have so many irons in the fire right now, I could make a wrought iron fence surrounding my entire house, if only any of them would get back to me.

After extreme focus on one single design, I've moved onto several other custom requests. There is the mystery one you glimpsed the last couple of days. Then I moved onto a request to capture an existing bracelet in lace. The bangle bracelet has special engraving that cannot be sized, but is too large for the wearer. They asked if perhaps it might be entwined into lace in order to make it fit. Rather than attempt this with the real bracelet, I made a wire analog using the customers measurements and used a familiar Celtic design as a jumping off point. Of course the stitch counts are all different, but it's the basic construction technique that was perfect for this task. I wish I could credit the original designer, but honestly I can't figure out who did it first. This of course is one of those irons awaiting approval before commencing.

Next up we have a headband. After wearing one of my jeweled masks another customer wondered if a similarly jeweled headband might be created. For this piece I went all over creation looking for the right edging to base it off of. It needed to be think, about 2.5 inched across and it needed to have just the right spacing for crystal embellishment to not be too heavy or light. While that can be created simply by adding more picots, I wanted the design to really hold them...if that makes any sense. Again I went with a familiar construction technique of a sort of rose motif, chain, motif and turn the whole thing around like a bookmark. I really likes a bookmark design I spied, but I wanted the whole thing much more compact and dense. The inspiration was spied on Gina's blog and I believe it was by Judi Banashek. I hope I changed enough, but I really liked the structure for the headband. This too is awaiting customer approval so it might well be different in the end anyway.

There are are a few more custom orders and requests also firing, but I think that's enough sharing for now. Who knows what I'll get onto today.

2 comments:

Trinity Lea said...

Sounds like all kinds of stressful fun!

Since learning how to tat using your instructables flower pendant tutorial, I've dug around online, printed dozens of patterns for motifs and edgings, and after a bit more practice, I have started a huge ambitious project, the whole reason for me learning to tatt: a bridal necklace and cuffs, and 3 bridesmaids necklaces. I'm using bits and pieces from a bunch of patterns as inspiration for the brides pieces.

My question is: I love your flower garland necklace, and the pattern matches my vision for the bridesmaids necklaces. Would you be willing to let me borrow your pattern?

TotusMel said...

Quite an ambitious project, good luck! The garland pattern is a vintage edging pattern & if I can figure out which book I got it from I'll email it to your profile address.