The Curse is Broken

Okay... so that whole "at least one post each month" thing I declared I was trying to do back in May? 

Clearly that didn't work.

In August, all I managed was a post about how wretched August was. Then in September, I whinged about how much worse September was, and tacked on a picture of a great many ties.  October?  There was no October.  I'm simply not going to acknowledge that October even existed.  That isn't to say I didn't finish any projects... because actually, I did.  I meant to post one of them in November (because there was no such thing as October, even though that's when I finished this thing) but every time I thought about it I had too many other things to do to stop and prattle about a necklace on my blog.

So yeah...  my belated post for October November that didn't actually make it onto this blog until early December is a necklace.  There's going to be a LOT of those on here... just a warning.

I thought it up way back in April of 2010, and then started on it that summer, after collecting all the materials  needed.  For some reason though, I didn't finish it until October of this year, even though I knew how and had all the pieces.  I guess it was just taking a long time and I got a little tired of it and needed a break... and then forgot about it.  Which is almost fitting in a way, because of the story that inspired it.  "Stronger Than Time" by Patricia C. Wrede (found in The Book of Enchantments) approaches the Sleeping Beauty fairytale from a different angle than any other I've seen.  What if the prince failed?  What if she really did have to stay in an enchanted death-like sleep for 100 years?  I loved the story, and the author's description (in the back of the book) of a castle ruin that sparked the idea... so when I found some grey marble block beads on one of my supply sites, and discovered some lovely hand-dyed silk ribbon that came in a color called "Briar Rose", this necklace design started coming together in my head.  Pity it took so many years to come to life.

 

The roses are sculpted out of the silk ribbon, which also makes up part of one side of the necklace, mixed in with some chain, and the vines are twisted satin cording.  With tiny folded ribbon thorns.  Er... those were one of the things that made me abandon it for so long, they were not a fun bit to tackle.  Getting the vine to appear to be climbing up the stones was not much fun either.  However I love how it all came together in the end.

 

The random watch bits and jewels are mostly vintage stuff, with a few shiny new Swarovski crystals thrown in.  The bit of Dragon's Breath glass on the gear is my favorite of the jewels.  I love that stuff, it's so... glowy.  I also seem to be developing a fondness for asymmetry in my necklaces.

It's late, and I'm starting to describe things in a less than coherent manner (...glowy?) so I'll post this and get some sleep.  Hopefully not 100 years of it though, I have WAY too much stuff to do to sleep in that long.