w.i.p. 15 october

Phew ... kind of worn out here.  Been working most of the day on the Epic Champagne Stack.  The whole piece is based on a gorgeous long agatized bamboo cylinder.  I already had pulled out most of my on hand components for the Champagne color palette and the layout came easily, well relatively.  It's chock full of very cool elements ... the last of my raw bronze components, fossilized bone, a beautiful vintage faceted agate cylinder, a couple of Basha beads, rutilated quartz, freshwater pearls, beach glass and a beach pebble and some really nice Roman glass beads. 

Then I ran into a few challenges ... I cut the cord too short on the first round of stringing.  Luckily I figured it out before I was very far into the assembly.  Then the next round of stringing, I realized the holes in those long chunks of rutilated quartz were really poorly drilled (a chronic problem with that particular vendor).  Initially, I'd found one that I could get a quadruple length of cord through the hole - just barely.  However, after sliding the nugget up and down said cord as I started knotting the necklace, the bloody cord broke ...  hrrrmph!  So I decided to drill out the hole ... nope, that didn't work either.  My attempts in opening up the holes in several nuggets ended up with mismatched drill holes topped off by a drill bit breaking off inside one of the chunks ... hence, no vertical rutilated quartz chunk in the piece.  Onward.

Then I got most of the way done knotting the piece and realized, once again, the cord was too short.  Not to worry ... necessity is always the mother of invention.  I left off a bunch of bits at that end.  Then to get the length I wanted, I just made the leather closure seriously asymmetrical, which actually is much more interesting.  Hooray for my miscalculation! 

I started off with the button closure at the center back, but decided I liked it better with the button off to the side.  Ultimately, depending on the wearer, the piece is going to find it's comfort sweet spot. 

That's what I love about these raw bronze pieces ... they're going to develop a personal patina.  The surface will probably pick up shiny areas, but that will be totally determined by the individual and how the piece is worn over time.  I think that's best ...

I present the last (for at least a while) of the Champagne Stack series ... this one is truly Epic.

Now on to silver and one or two more steel pieces ... can't wait to share the color palettes!

with deep gratitude - kvk