Lost Jewelry Arts

Just got back from Denver where I attended the national MENSA convention. No, I don't belong to MENSA, my husband does. As Groucho Marx once so wisely said, I don't want to belong to any institution that will have me!

Anyway, for several days of the event, there were various Mensan's who were selling their handcrafted items. Although many of the items were quite lovely, I was really surprised to see two vendors who were using techniques that I thought had been lost. These were sea shell jewelry and crocheted rope jewelry.

The sea shell jewelry was not the tourist stuff you generally see when you travel. Rather tiny cap, or cup, sea shells are dyed and made into delicate flowers or figures. These tiny shells, about 1/4" in diameter each, are very thin and delicate. In the 50's, sea shell jewelry like this was made by forming elaborate floral designs and gluing the shells onto plastic discs or into gold frames. This vendor had come up with an interesting twist on that technique by using plain vintage brooches as a base for her designs. Because the underlying brooches were often abstract in design, the result was attractive jewelry that was an interesting combination of old and new.

The second vendor was crocheting beads into ropes for necklaces and bracelets in beautiful jewel-like colors. Crocheted bead ropes are made by stringing tiny beads onto thread and then crocheting it into ropes about the same diameter is clothesline. She was using colored and clear beads over various colors of threads to form these bead ropes.

Crocheted bead rope jewelry has gone in and out of popularity many times. In the Victorian era tiny jet beads would be crocheted into mourning jewelry. In the 20's flapper wore sautoirs, very long necklaces with tassels on the end. These were often made of crocheted of glass beads. Although this particular style of necklace is out of fashion, crocheted bead ropes still make lovely necklaces and bracelets. In fact, I purchased a bracelet that was made of clear plastic beads that had been crochet on verigated cotton thread. The result was a really pretty bangle bracelet in soft shades of moss green.

Sometimes it seems that old techniques of making things are lost. But somewhere, there is always someone who continues to adapt old techniques to new fashionable styles.