Last Post to Blogger!

I've moved!!
Please update your links and RSS subscriptions, this blog is now at www.virtudej.com.

I had to move as later this year I shall be offering a multilingual site and unfortunately I just can't see a way to do that within Blogger.

So click on over to the new site, where you can read about my latest adventures in the Wild West (of northern Spain!) aka Galicia.

See you there!

Connemara

I'm taking a break from Pride and Prejudice jewellery at the moment, although I added this nice little image index on the left, and I'm planning to revisit it in a while.

So onwards I go to...Ireland! About five years ago when my sister Lisa and I were both living in Hampshire, we took a week off in March to visit the West coast of Ireland around Connemara.

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To be honest I can't remember why we went there, specifically, except that the main theme was riding horses. I do remember the huge impact the wild beauty of the place had on us.

From Connemara

Connemara is also famous for a very beautiful green marble mined in the region, and I recently used some tube beads and rounds to make a simple wire-wrapped necklace and bracelet. See below:

Wire wrapped choker

Wire wrapped bracelet

Here in San Sebastian I'm not aware of any locally-mined minerals, but I'm going to do a little research-and you? Do you know what is mined in your region?

Pride and Prejudice Jewellery Part IX - Mrs Jenkinson

Mrs Jenkinson is a minor character, but we see her here gladly offering up the use of the piano in her room that Lizzie might improve her skill.

Miss Anne de Bourgh, Mrs Jenkinson and Mr William Collins

Her necklace seems to be a chain with drops in jet, possibly. I created a version with Swarovski faceted beads in Jet Hematite (a special coating which gives a kind of steely shine) and combined it with drops of sparkling Black Diamond:

Wire wrapped choker

And then I made matching earrings:

Wire wrapped matching earrings

Pride and Prejudice Jewellery Part VIII - Mrs Bennet

Mrs Bennet, I'm sure this character never had so much life breathed in to her as when Alison Steadman's played her; she was so shrill, so annoying but utterly wonderful and I'm glad that she continued to work in period dramas after this, her first performance in this genre.

Mrs Fanny Bennet

Here we see her wearing some simple-looking drop earrings, possibly coral judging by the colour and from the fact that coral was available around this time. I personally do not use coral as a material, but I do have some plain rounds of rose quartz! To match the colour better I should use Cherry Quartz, a dyed version but I prefer the subtler, more watery natural version.

Various Rose Quartz Beads

In order to make them look more "vintage", I worked in some Bali silver components. Although jewellery components with filigree work such as this might have been around, they would almost certainly have been in gold. But no matter, you can still see the "the look" I'm aiming for here:

Rose Quartz Earrings

I thought them rather pretty so I added a bracelet too:

Rose Quartz Bracelet

Pride and Prejudice Jewellery Part VII - Elizabeth Bennet

Of course no discussion of Pride and Prejudice would be complete without a mention of our heroine, Lizzie:

Miss Eliza Bennet

Everywhere in the BBC adaptation she seems to be wearing this very simple cross, even on her wedding day:

Mr Charles Bingley, Miss Jane Bennet, Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet

In my interpretation I decided to use a Swarovski cross, but only the simplest one available- crystal clear. I wrapped it with some heavy-ish gauge Sterling and another Swarovski bicone to create a bail:

Elizabeth: Swarovski cross and 5301 bicones, free rainbow with every one!

Then I also wrapped each end of the Sterling chain with a little crystal, including at the back. it's such an over-looked area but highly visible if you have short hair or wear your hair up. And here's the finished article:

Elizabeth: 46cm chain with a 3cm drop

Pride and Prejudice Jewellery Part VI - The Real Regency Period Jewellery

Pride and Prejudice Jewellery Part VI - The Real Regency Period Jewellery

Diana Scarisbrick has written a number of books on jewellery. I have one of her books, "Jewellery in Britain, 1066-1837", a heavy and serious-looking hardback which I confess I haven't read from cover to cover but rather, dip into as and when the need arises. Such a need has now arisen as I was interested to see the comparison between the BBC interpretation and the research in this book.

Our interest lies in the Regency period, which I believe is the period in which all of Jane Austen's novels were set, and lasted from 1811 to 1820. In the book this period falls under the chapters of "The social context of later Georgian jewellery 1790 - 1837" and "The categories of later Georgian jewellery 1790 - 18372".

Apparently it was a time of opulence and wealth, in 1817 an American ambassador was reportedly astonished by the lavish range of luxury goods including expensive gemstones. The prince regent, (appointed in 1811 and the reason for the naming of "The Regency Period") led the way with very high expenditure on jewellery. Other foreign visitors remarked on the "gems and plumes and pearls and silks...".

A contributing factor to the abundance of gems could be the fleeing émigrés of the French Revolution which finished just over a decade earlier.

Pearls were highly popular, but other materials were also used: amber, ivory, elk claw and bog oak!

Here are a few picture from the book, as you can see they all fit very well with the styles displayed in the BBC adaptation.

Incidentally, if you're interested in the fashion of the era, then the Pemberley site has a wonderful collection of images.

Pride and Prejudice Jewellery Part V- Mrs Gardiner

What a wonderful character Mrs. Gardiner is- so sensible, dignified but warm, gracious and kind also. She's one of my favourite characters in the book and I love Joanna David's effortlessly wonderful performance. We see her here at a soirée with a rather complicated-looking necklace and some graduated pearl earrings.

Grace and Serenity Personified: Joanna David as Mrs. Gardiner

I re-created a version of these, pausing for thought on whether I could possibly squeeze in some sparkly crystals, but decided against it, and so here is the resulting pair of earrings:

Mrs. Gardiner's Earrings

BTW I'm sure you know this already but here's a piece of trivia- in real life Joanna David is the mother of Emilia Fox, who played the young Miss Darcy in the same BBC adaptation!