Monday, November 15, 2010

Beautiful Cabochons by Marsha Hedrick of Amazing Porcelain

Marsha Hedrick really picked the right name for her business: Amazing Porcelain. I finished another piece using one of her beautiful cabochons this time:




















I chose the blue and gold cabochon because I don't work with blue very often, and I wanted to see what I could do with it. I was also interested in beading around the cabochon because of it's unusual shape - definitely not your everyday round or oval cabochon!

The fringe and the strap were a bit of a challenge for me. As I wrote previously, my original plan to attach the piece of a brass collar covered in leather didn't work when I discovered that I didn't have the right color of leather and that I lacked the necessary glover's needles for stitching through leather. (The glover's needles have since arrived and worked perfectly for finishing the leather collar!)

I decided to use a variation of flat spiral for the strap, using Czech fire polished beads and some inverted onyx drops from a project I made years ago. The fringe repeats the colors of the cab and uses more of those onyx drops. I tried the piece on and found that the fringe hangs wonderfully from the strap and the cabochon, and the strap is so comfortable to wear that I almost forgot I was wearing it!

The cabochon itself is truly a miniature work of art from Marsha. I love it. It's thin and lightweight, but substantial. The raised texture on it feels wonderful to the touch, and the colors are true and vibrant.

Marsha has some of this style available as slides for beaded and kumihimo ropes, and she'll have some available soon as cabochons. She also has them in red and gold, and has a set available with some of her yummy porcelain cones. Check out her website for all the options, including some other beautiful art nouveau styles of slides and cones!

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