Venturing into the unknown…

Today I put my first couple of pieces up for sale on Etsy.com. I’m not anywhere near what I’d consider ready but I was starting to realize that I wasn’t ever likely to be as ready as I wanted to be, so here I go. The first is the paternoster I talked about below. The picture doesn’t do it justice, alas, and I really should have a few more; this is why I wanted to do more before I posted! But that way lies madness and it is a pretty good picture. And I can add more later.

The second is a necklace called ‘Hammer and a Nail’. It’s named after an Indigo Girls song –

I look behind my ears for the green
And even my sweat smells clean
Glare off the white hurts my eyes
I gotta get out of bed
Get a hammer and a nail
Learn how to use my hands

All of my jewelry from here on out is going to be named, though I didn’t name anything I sent out for Christmas. But anything I put that much time and consideration and, yes, love into should have a name, I figure. Since music inspires me anyway and I’ve always got a soundtrack of some sort going, I’m using song titles. Might expand it more later (as the muse demands!).

It’s mainly glass, this piece, and not even matching beads, but I like the shine and the rhythm of it — swinging a hammer isn’t always dead even, either, but there’s a pattern to it, a feel you get once you’ve built enough decks. Which I certainly have; thanks Dad! It’s relatively close-fitting so it won’t get in your way when you’re working on something — I’m always worried that something too long will get caught in the drill press and I’ll wind up one of those stories told on the evening news in grim tones.

Well, that’s my two pieces for today. More will follow as I wrest pictures out of Tim and then convince myself that really, it’s okay, I’m ready to take that step and post things.

About those paternosters I mentioned…

Paternosters are ancestors of the modern Catholic rosary (as well as other modern prayer beads; I know Anglicans have something much like them as well.) Since I’m into medieval stuff, religion, and beads, paternosters were a natural.

The one above is based on a German paternoster from 1500 — it uses a similar layout, but I chose different stones for the beads. Mine is made from lapis beads with smaller gold ones separating them; the gauds (those are the larger beads that separate each group of smaller ones) are glass millefiori beads a friend of mine gave me a long time ago.

This one was made as a gift for a friend — it’s blue and gold glass beads with a ring on the end. Nice and simple, a typical man’s paternoster.

It’s based on this pair, also from Germany, from the 16th century. The number of stones varied from nine (as in the one on the left) to fifteen or so; I used twelve.

Here are a few more paternosters I’ve made — many of these will be available on my Etsy shop soon. I also plan to make modern-style Catholic and Anglican rosaries, and I’m willing to do custom prayer beads in whatever patters has meaning for you.

Much more information on paternosters is available from the Yahoo paternosters group or this rather nice blog focused on paternosters.