My pearls

[Parrot Lady]

Beautiful quilt, Charlotta. You are a woman of many talents.

 

[pattye]

Charlotta,

Wow, your experience with coordinating colors has certainly transferred to your pearl designs beautifully! Wonderful, meaningful quilt for Mother to cherish.

 

[CricketBug]

Charlotta, you hand quilted the whole thing?! That's so much work and time to create it. It's so beautiful!

 

[Charlotta]

Thank you Parrot Lady, Pattye and Cricketbug. Yes I handquiltied the whole thing and stitched every seem by hand. I have a very good sewing machine, but I prefer to sit and sew in the evenings when not-husband and I watch some episode on netflix. The results are better, with more precise corners and points, with handstitching. It takes forever though. My mother also quilts but she sews the pieces together and then handquilt. I am currently working on a pearl roll for traveling, since I couldn't find one to buy, and also an ohio star quilt, all by hand. I show you the pearl roll when I'm done with it. I take new photos of the akoya, tahitian and south sea rope later, the photos are a bit dark.

 

[Charlotta]

Some better photos, the other ones were taken at dusk.

 

[Charlotta]

Today I made a golden rope using a vintage double akoya necklace and one strand of baroque light golden south sea pearls. It's 34 inch long and I used Beaders secret in gold. In real life the tread is not so visable, it blends in nicely. The akoyas are more golden than some of the golden south sea pearls.





And this is the leftover akoya pearls. I will throw these away. This beautiful vintage double akoya necklace clearly belonged to someone who loved it and used it often. There were a lot of damage to the pearls near the clasp an on one side of the necklace. Liberal use of hairspray and/or perfume. It didn't show when I used it but I will not use those pearls in a new strand.

Some of these pearls looks good on the photo, but somewhere on every one of these pearls there are corroded nacre or no nacre at all or no luster.

 

[Charlotta]

My pearl roll is finished. I handsewed and handquilted everything and I used indigo and shirting (white with blue feathers) reproduction fabric from reproductionfabrics.com. It holds 7 strands. Here I put in 5 about 18 inches or so strands and my ombre rope, the rope got two straps. Then I can just roll it and bring it with me.





Also some more photos of my latest rope creations. The pearls I used for these three are mostly from Cees and Pearlescence with the addition of two vintage double akoya necklaces.

 

[Pearl Dreams]

How very cool!!

 

[CricketBug]

That’s brilliant, Charlotta!

 

[Parrot Lady]

What a great idea, Charlotta,! I could use a bunch of those jewelry rolls (could fit so many more strands in my jewelry drawer!)

 

[Katbran]

Great jewellery roll !!And the necklaces look beautiful !

 

[Charlotta]

Thank you Pearl Dreams, Cricketbug, Parrot Lady and Katbran. I think that it will come in handy when I travel or if I just want to bring my favorites to the summer cabin or whatever. I am thinking about making a minione for one or two strands that I can fit into my purse when I have to remove them when I get a haircut or so. Now I have a drawstring bag in my purse, but I don't like it, they can get scratched.

 

[pattye]

Nicely done with the jewelry roll, so useful! And of course, the necklaces are lovely!

 

[Charlotta]

Thank you Pattye. It is very useful.

 

[Charlotta]

I made another smaller pearl roll, for 1-2 strands or 3 bracelets. This one is great for my purse, should I need to remove my pearls suddenly, cutting my hair or at the doctors officer. I also made a small bag that can be tied up with the attatched string. For this bag I also made a stud holder, that holds 3 pair of studs. I put a recycled piece of ice cream lid inside and made holes in it and the fabric with a blunt darning needle, that pushes the fabric aside instead of damaging the fabric. All handsewn and the rolls handquilted. Did I tell you that I'm all out of ivory in Beaders secret. Have to keep my hands busy while I wait for my delivery of more tread.
The big roll.




The small roll.




The small bag and studholder.


The whole family.

I might make a bigger studholder if I can get a bigger rektangel out of the ice cream lid...it's not a square one...
Pearls from Cees, Pearlescence and Pearl Paradise.

 

[Charlotta]

My blue baroque south sea pendant arrived from Pearlescence some days ago and it's gorgeous. Metallic blue with a pink overtone. Very bumpy, part of her pokemon collection, it looks like a little skipping pearl person. It's not that little accually, I forgot the measurements but measured it with my measuring tape, about 16mm long and 14mm wide.







I just had to take photos from every angle since it's so interesting. I really do love baroque pearls, perfect once as well of course but there is less to discover. Not-husband thought it looked like a skull in some angles. It's simply stunning. With my blue tahitian strand and studs from Pearlescence.

This is the earrings I bought from Pearlescence last night that will go nicely with the pendant but also with my blue akoyas. It's not my photo. They haven' t arrived yet.

 

[Charlotta]

I did restring and rearrange my golden south sea and vintage akoya wavestrand. The longer one was almost perfect, but I didn't like the graduation of the shorter one. I was only going to do the longer one at first, but then I had so many pearls left. I had the smallest akoyas left after both strands, about 10-15 of them. But I had run out of Beaders secret in ivory. As soon as I got my new tread, I got out two beading boards and cut the two strands apart. I added some of the smallest akoyas as well as some of the golden south sea pearls on the longer wavestrand and removed some of the bigger akoyas that I used on the shorter strand. Then I restrung them both. Now they are both wavestrands and the difference between the biggest and the smallest pearls are greater. The longer wavestrand is slightly longer than my ombre tahitian rope, (about 36 inches) so maybe 37 inches. I do really like the wavestrands and I have the perfect studs to match, my 7,5mm deep golden south sea studs from Oceanscove.










So now I have two HG ropes, the waverope and the ombre tahitian rope.

 

[Charlotta]

Whilst waiting for my pretty blue baroque south sea studs I bought from Pearlescence, probably held up by my dear friends at the swedish postal service, I played some with my +100 inch freshwater strand that I had left at the summera cabin in a box...sometime. I am to lazy to measure them, the strand was 100 inch when I bought it, then I knotted between each pearl so probably a bit longer. The pearls are almost round and have a nice luster. They look ivory when worn, but have a peachy overtone to them, that is obvious when they are in a pile. I don't use these much, mostly because of the lenght. The pearls are probably around 6-6,5mm, don't remember really and I have had them for years so I don't even remember where I got them.




With one champagne and one green south sea stud (from Tahitipearldesiger and from Pearlescence). They look peachy when compared.

I do love does green south sea studs. I bet they go well with my new project Wendy is working on for me in Hongkong. She sent photos, it's amazing.

 

[Lady_Disdain]

Oooh, those studs!

Sorry, I got distracted big time for them. The rope is lovely and congrats on the huge knotting job

 

[Charlotta]

Thank you Lady_Disdain, it took a while to knot.