Remembering summer

I like making brooches: they are not too time-consuming to make compared to e.g. necklaces and they can be worn in so many different ways. This brooch, so hard to capture on photo, was one I made this summer for a bead shop contest on the theme Sea.

Can you spot what I have used as a background? About the same time as Sirlig announced the contest, they added a new product to their shop: fluffy organza jewellery bags. Reading the theme of the contest and seeing the newly added product, I couldn't stop thinking of the fluffy bags as waves and frothy seafoam. Of cause I had to think of a way to incorporate one of those bags in my entry!

It doesn't show well on photo, but what I did was to trim the edges of the bag and remove the strings, then stitch it to my interfacing. I made sure to ruffle the organza so it would form dimensional ridges and waves, raising from the surface.

In between the ridges I added beads, like enamel is added to the cells in cloisonné: bright blue-and-green glass chips, turquoise and green ice pearls and a few crackled blue-dyed rock crystal chips. A tiny glass fish bead was also added. The chips were stitched on with the holes parallel to the surface rather than having the holes point up and secured with stop stitches. This make it all more dimensional and make sure the most colourful sides of the chips face outwards (they are dyed so most of the colour is around the outer perimeter and very little around the hole).