Confessions of a Crystal Hoarder Blog

I bought a terrific costume jewelry book this month: Coppola e Toppo by Deanna Farneti Cera. 

Coppola e Toppo was an Italian costume jewelry manufacturer who produced designs for top couture fashion houses in Paris and Italy. I’d been stalking C e T’s jewelry on the web since a lovely necklace first popped up in my Pinterest feed earlier this year. Speaking of which, have you followed A Grain of Sand on Pinterest yet? I post items from New Finds, and have a board of vintage and modern jewelry made with components matching those we've found in the Hoard.

Anyhow, many of their designs are referred to in the book as “weft woven”...but we’d call it right angle weave.

Many of their designs incorporated chain with right angle weave, so it was time to tackle mixing my media with the vintage brass chainfrom this month’s box. I don’t know if they built bead components first, then secured them to chain, or if the chain was stitched in place as beads were added. I chose to weave my entire inner bead strip, then go back and fasten the chain to it. To get the curves I wanted I alternated traditional 4-bead units with units where I used two beads as a single side of the weave.

The first row of chain was stitched in. Then I used jump rings to support the second row of chain. That way I could lay the whole thing flat so I could figure out how big the other bead row needed to be. I had a matching larger plastic bead, and I loved how the size change added more texture. Yup, all the beads are plastic. I had been surprised to find that Coppola e Toppo had used plastic faceted beads much like these for their jewelry.

Their “weft woven” bases under all manner of beads inspired me to make one super bold cuff! I used dusty pink wood rounds from the Hoard to build a light and comfortable base onto which I added strands of faux coral from our boxes. The strands alternate in length to get that extra dense look. But since you can’t really have coral poking you while you type, the inner wrist portion is plain.

I've been struggling to troubleshoot cubic RAW to my beady friends when they see diagrams in the magazines. I've tried to describe how I approach it, but I think the real issue is trying to master the stitch with tiny beads. I still don’t have the patience to use right angle weave with seed beads, and it’s my oldest stitch. (My sincere apologies to Marcia deCoster- her projects are beautiful, but I may never be able to see one of those projects to completion.)

So this time I tried to sketch my plan out neatly. That rapidly became stream of consciousness sketching. And in the end, my stitching process wasn't at all how it goes in books.

I started with a triple-wide flat strip for the first leg, and zipped it into a tube. Then I built a single row perpendicular to it, and worked back to the corner with another row. In the end I got what looks like cubic right angle weave, while working in one dimension at a time.

Ok, so this was kind of a cheaty-faced way to go, but I needed the practice. I made this ombre crystal pendant of 4mm crystals to hang on the snake chain from our club boxes. But this time I worked hard to do cubic right angle weave the “official” way. I started with a tiny crystal cluster, built my way around from there. I still like starting flat better because it looks like I’m getting more accomplished.

I like getting things done. I don’t bead to spend time being frustrated...the goal is to have fun. So make jewelry whatever way feels best to you, and if it’s a little unorthodox, so