Earrings

[Zefiryn]

I'm half Athabascan (Alaska Native) and live in Alaska. A few years ago my grams passed away. This spring is her traditional funeral in the village our family is from. Something that the surviving family does is makes gifts for the members of the village, because they pay for the funeral or help organize it. I think also it helps with the mourning process. A traditional funeral is typically held 3 years after a person dies (at least what my aunties and uncles tell me). These gifts are given out at a large potlach. I'm not very good at beadwork or other traditional Athabascan crafts, so I decided to do a little chainmaille. I've been doing chainmaille for about 5 years now.

Here are a couple examples of earrings that I made. My husband and 13 year old daughter helped me out. We made 100 pairs of earrings. (There's about 330 peaople in the village total.) I'll take more pics in the morning and share.  All of the earrings are on surgical steel french hooks.





Those are a little half byzantine pattern I guess you could call them.  I made other designs but didn't really think about taking pics until tonight. All the earrings made were super simple, since we needed to make a bunch.

More earring.
These are called Shaggy Loops. I put beads on the dangling jump rings.


Byzantine


Some people like to call this a Japanese variant, but I call it a chain. Made with Bright Aluminum and Anodized Aluminum.


The whole cluster together.


I put them in their own baggies to make it easier to hand out. I considered just tying them with a piece of cotton yarn or punching holes in a blank business card, but before they can be handed out they have to sit outside over night. Being spring in interior Alaska, it could rain or possibly snow, so I settled on biodegradable plastic baggies. I'll be mailing them off on Friday from Fairbanks.

[hgddm]

Love the earrings, and it sounds like a nice tradition. Hope everything goes well.

[endymion]

These are SO pretty! Cannot imagine making 100 pair... What a lovely tradition.

[Samantha_McKay]

Those are lovely. I love chainmaille jewelry.

Yay, for Alaska! I was born and raised there up near Glennallen. Unfortunately I've been out of state for the last 2 years I miss home! I really love some of the traditions there. I'm in Virginia now and it seems very odd to live where you don't know the whole community.

[kcartwright856]

I love how it seems so lovely and simple at the first glance, but reveals itself as dainty and intricate upon closer inspection.

Awesome work, and kudos for doing so many of them! Your grams would be so proud.

[imera]

lovely earrings, and it sounds like a nice tradition, except the make 100 pairs. but it's a nice thing to do for the people that helps out with the funeral.

[Zefiryn]

Thank you for the kind words everyone. Grams would have loved them to bits, she was such a crafty person, knitting, crochet, beadwor, embroidery, basket weaving, and other things. (I know where it came from)

@ Samantha_McKay: <3 Home misses you too! I'm a city slicker. Born and raised in Anchorage. My husband's work transferred us to Fairbanks, but oddly enough we're closer to even more family now than in Anchorage.