Beachcomber

So the weather. Apart from a dreich, rather windy couple of days this week it continues to be sunny and summery. This balmy, fluffy white cloud, blue sky weather makes me want to don a floaty frock and spend a day beach combing. I could easily spend an entire day happily gazing at the strandline and at piles of pebbles and filling my pockets full of treasure. It's likely that I would forget to have lunch. This has happened once or twice.

When I began blogging in 2008 I had only just begun to work with silver clay. At the time one of my favourite things to do was to use the clay to emulate the shapes and surface textures of some of my beach finds. The joy I felt at having made a series of silver pebbles is hard to describe. I realised that I hadn't made a three dimensional silver pebble for quite some time so spurred on by the beachy weather I put that to rights.

There's a moment when I've finished making a piece of jewellery when I place it down on my worktable and look at it. I'm afraid that my table is far from tidy. At any one time there might be small piles of beads, gemstones and small silver things that I've made dotting the surface along with small bags of pearls, patty pans full of seaglass and tools. When an idea for a necklace pops into my mind I'll gather the makings for it together but am sometimes drawn in another direction. It's a bit of a jumble.

When I put the silver pebble down onto the wood the small pile of handmade antique beads nearby in various shades of aquamarine seemed to leap out, as did my trusty stash of tiny shell buttons and some little drilled shells. A small seaside-inspired collection was inevitable.

It echoes tiny treasures brought home from the beach, Cornish coves, rockpools, piles of pebbles on the beach at Walberswick, seaglass collections and holiday memories. It's called the beachcomber series and it's in my etsy shop.