A Disc Of Amethyst

#14 - A commissioned piece for my pal Poochie. I made her #2 as a gift and she came back for more, as a paying customer, of course.

She would be the President of the unofficial The Empress Dowager's New Jewels Fanclub, if there was one, for she's been constantly sending me inspiration boards and links ever so enthusiastically since Day #1.

Her brief for this piece was "something ferfes" (our word for her favourite colour purple) and "I'm so in love with the Lanvin pieces (see here) so maybe something along that line?".

The ferfes bit was easy - I had a small piece of dotted Japanese wool sitting in my box of scraps.

The Lanvin bit, on the other hand, gave me quite a headache and a few pin-pricked fingers.

But, hey, it's a challenge! Interpreting something made out of tiny beady things into a piece made out of fabric, with "gems" a minimum size of 1.5cm (simply couldn't sew anything that was smaller - I tried!)

The other challenge was trying to cut as many "stones" out of the fabric as possible to make a decent-looking necklace - one aim of The Empress Dowager's New Jewels is to use up as much of my collection of off-cuts as I can before buying new fabric. Notice the two darker pieces of "gems" at each end? Well, I ran out of the dotted one and had to make them out of some Marimekko scrap.

Anyway, here it is, A Disc Of Amethyst, Pooch. As inspired by the "statement" Lanvin necklaces as I can get with "gems" a hundred sizes up from the miniscule lacquered crystals on the original!

Working on your next commissioned piece soon with a bigger piece of fabric to play with so I can get more "gems" out of it for more drippy-drapey layers and hopefully a little bit closer to your dream piece. xx