Wire Mood

 

The wire has been brought out of the cupboard again, after several months of waiting while I attended to other projects. Always I feel as though I'm "breaking the rules" (rules? It's art!) and I guess that's why I enjoy it so much, LOL. 

Actually, I do follow a few basic rules (discovered through trial and error) to create a piece that will be beautiful for a long time. The most important: non tarnish wire! These pieces with fiber tatting wrapped in are not suitable for the usual wire jewelry finishing techniques of oxidation and/or polishing. I used to use Argentium silver sometimes, but no, no, it tarnishes to a horrible color, not the attractive dark gray of "antiqued" silver. It can be polished carefully with a cloth embedded with silver polish, but really that is no fun at all! I gave all my silver wire away. 

My basic process for my wire + tatting pendants is shown in this YouTube video I made https://youtu.be/eHRmMAvf1gU 

Each one always comes out different!

Lace necklace from "Victory" pattern

This lace necklace was inspired by a vintage collar pattern called "Victory". The thread I used was Lizbeth size 20 in Violet Pink Dark (for the center and the chains of the outer round) and for the rings on the edge I used my own hand dyed "Campfire".

Something I learned while tatting the clusters on the edge was that I needed to make my picots just slightly larger to allow the lace to lay flat. I didn't quite get that calculation of correct picot size to perfection, so there is still some slight "cupping" on the edges of this necklace but I'm very pleased overall.

The book I found the pattern in is called The Tatter's Treasure Chest which was published by Dover in 1990. On the copyright page there's a list of publications from the 1930s and 1940s that this collection was selected from. Another of the patterns in this book often seen tatted into necklaces is called "Pleasure Bent". It's a very similar design, but with rounded edges instead of points.

I used beading wire to string beads for the neck cord. Happily, enough coordinating colors of beads were found in my stash! However I did notice that I'm running low on jump rings, wire protectors, and other findings, so shopping will be necessary to replenish my supplies.