The color of the top photo is “closer” to the actual colors, but cameras and I have never seen eye to lens.
This necklace was inspired by the polymer clay necklaces Olga Cherynshova was making back in 2012.
I wanted to see how the shape translated to fiber. I have some idea how she constructed her pieces, but what works for polymer clay doesn’t work for fiber!
To make this necklace, I commissioned a CAD designer to design a mold:
Sort of like a cookie cutter, but with wide supports on the edges top and bottom so it rests well on my felting brush. We 3D printed the mold in two sizes.
The molds made it easier to establish the basic shape, but much refinement of the shape was done once the fiber was removed from the molds.
Using core fiber, I made 7 full size sections, 2 reduced size sections, 2 triangular sections which were made using the small mold - felting only one side of the mold really well to establish the “interlocking dip” the remander of the fiber was shaped outside the mold. All sections shape was refined after removal from the mold and then covered with finer, colored fiber.
All the sections were then gently wet felted and allowed to dry completely. Once dry I added beads and embroidery, made felt heishi beads in a coordinating color and a ball an loop closure. All sections were strung together with a double length of wool thread.
I really had no design plans for this piece. It was meant to be an experiment to see how these interlocking shapes would look/work in fiber.
It’s a rather time consuming project which is fine, but should have an actual design plan instead of just winging it.
Possible variations could include increasing the quantity of core fiber used to create the foundation sections. It would be interesting to do a deeper wet felting with the sections to see what happens. With increased fiber the sections could be made to appear more “ball shape”. It might be interesting to try eco-printing the sections.
It’s been an interesting experiment.
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