Sherri Stokey's Summer Starfish Shindig

I have been a massive fan of Sherri Stokey's fabulous macrame work for years - I will never understand how she manages to tie so many perfect little knots!.  Her blog was one of the first I started following way back when I first discovered the art jewellery community.

Sherri has a wonderful colour-sense which is evident throughout her work, so when she announced a wee colour based challenge on the Love My Art Jewelry blog I was eager to participate.  Her chosen palette is one perfect for summer - a seascape of colours representing sun, sand and see.  Here is the inspiration photo she provided, don't you love those wee fish beads?

And here is what I have created for the challenge:

Apologies for the slightly cruddy photography - I snapped these in a very rushed 5 minutes this morning!

I had so much fun with this one!  The pendant is supposed to be vaguely reminiscent of a fish - can you see it?  The body is made up of a wonderful rustic lampwork oval by Judith Billig which I have been hoarding for a long ole time!  It is joined by a wonderful crusty bicone from Josephine Wadman, an aged bone disc and a funky triangular bead by Julie Burgard of Outwest for the tail.  Such a wonderful selection from some very talented ladies!

I pulled out a selection of tiny beads to match Sherri's colour palette - Czech glass, wee metal spacers and a selection of wood, bone and shell beads I have recently scavenged from charity shop finds (one of my favourite activities).  These little treasures got knotted up into a long and variegated tassel - the larger beads in the center include more Czech glass, copper, scavenged bone and a pretty agate drop bead that was a right pain to get the cords through!

I think this will be staying with me - I just can't bear to part with that bead of Judith's - it's been with me for such a long time!  I will certainly be making more pendants like though - knotting is my new love :)

I really enjoyed creating for this challenge - I hope you have equally enjoyed joining me here to read about it!

Don't forget to visit Sherri and Love My Art Jewelry to check out more wonderful creations from the other participants :)