Time Travel

Once upon a time, a woman had a beautiful five-strand pearl necklace. She wore it often. This was the "Jazz Age," and faux pearls were all the rage. Karl Lagerfeld designed with them.

But alas, the pearl necklace broke one day. And she never wore it again. When she died, "Grandmother's pearl necklace" was given to Carrie. Who brought it to me.

At first, we thought we'd just make it into a three-strand necklace. Surely there were enough loose pearls to do that. But no. This is a graduated pearl necklace, and the remaining pearls weren't all of the right size. We needed more pearls. Graduated faux pearls. From that time period. In the same color family. I looked hither and thither and what do you know?

Then one day Carrie took out a sheet of notebook paper and made a sketch of a pair of earrings she had seen someone wearing. I used that drawing as a starting point for these earrings, which accompany a graduated bracelet that seemed only fitting to go with her necklace.

Turned out we also had enough pearls for a graduated single-strand necklace to go with her bracelet.

Last but not least, Carrie had mentioned that her grandmother grew roses. So some of the remaining pearls show up here:

And here:



Carrie tells me her father and uncle were amazed to see the restored necklace. The last person they'd seen wearing those pearls, of course, was their mother--"Grandmother," to Carrie.

©2009-2015 Laynie Tzena.

Happy Endings

What to do? The metal piece in the center of Michele's feather pin was broken. And at that angle, you couldn't get much of anything in there.

As for the top part of the pin:

See that pink center? The back of it is pointed. Once upon a time, there was a piece anchoring that to the metal one in the feather. Gone.

"Forget it," Michele had been told. "Can't be fixed. Nothing to be done."

Well, Michele didn't want to hear that. And we had just finished the chocolate brown bracelet (see "Look Again"), so I guess she thought I was up to the challenge.

I tried feathers, fabric, paper--nothing worked. But then I tried one more idea. Or should I say a notion.*


Oh, and in case you were wondering, the metal piece is still broken. I sewed right over it.

And what about that crystal top? It turned out to have two new lives, one as a pin and one as a pendant. Here it is with its new relatives.

*Big thanks to the "Notions Queens" at Britex, Stone Mountain & Daughter, and the Ribbonerie for their help on this project.

©2009 Laynie Tzena.