UFOs :: Flipping the Rorschach

Oh those UFOs, they are the bane of a beader. They taunt you from the bead table, calling to you, as they lay there unfinished. You simply stare down at it knowing you need to either change direction or rip it out. Ugh, but the amount of work that went into it, and that original image you hold in your head keeps you from ripping it apart. Sound about right? Sigh.

I have so many of these unfinished objects that I've lost count. I knew for this hop I had to pull out the mother of all UFOs ... this beaded collar. Or at least that is what it was supposed to be, and yet when I assembled the collar it hung like a large rectangle. Why? Because I had the curve of the collar at the neckline completely wrong. Or should I say that it had no curve at all, it was a straight edge. I mean come on, who has a triangular neck? Clearly I had not thought this through, and yet I'd spent all this time putting these beads in place. Yep, the moment you just want to chuck it at the wall. This is my first attempt at a collar necklace, and a mistake I won't make again. Hugh sigh. 

I could not get myself to rip this one apart. Look at this piece. I spent hours upon hours beading in vintage, irregular Turkish seed beads and then lined the edging with vintage glass pearls. Then backed the piece with suede. There was ab.so.lute.ly no way I was pulling this thing apart. And so it sat on the bead table for more than a year. When Karen announced this UFO hop I knew I was going to pull this thing out and force myself to deal with it. 

So here is what I did. I decided that the one side of the collar could actually be the focal of an asymmetrical necklace. I went back to my stash to pull out more vintage pearls to balance the other side. My mother had given me a pile of old pearl necklaces that matched the small Turkish pearls from a friend. I also needed to pull out the backing and get rid of one of the connector jump rings I'd embedded on the left side. I left the other connector on the right to use as part of a toggle. I wanted to balance the width of the pearls to the collar so I added a square plate that I could anchor the pearls. Then it was just a matter of adding a backstrap.

What took so long to come to this solution? A solution that took me roughly 2 hours to complete? I think it is the same angst for all UFOs. You start a piece with a vision in mind, and it is hard to re-set that lens. But once you let go and flip the Rorschach you can finally re-imagine your piece. 

There is a crew of us working on UFOs, so check out the rest of the blog hop: Karen, Christine, Amy, Therese, Kim, Liz E, Margo, Cathi, Liz and Francie.