Friend’s Necklaces
Emma first called me after her Google search found me and she’d taken some time to browse through my commission examples. Feeling a strong connection to my style, Emma said that I was the only jeweller she wanted to talk to about her commission for a set of necklaces for her Shepherdess friends.
Adding a touch of style at the agricultural shows
Celebrating their 50th birthdays Emma, Liz and Amanda met at agricultural college and have remained close friends for the last 32 years. Working as shepherdesses in Norfolk, Cumbria and Yorkshire, they try to meet once a month to catch up over a coffee and are always available to help each other out when needed. Shepherding is hard and generally muddy work but I learned that the three friends do enjoy the opportunity to get dressed up in their tweeds when they go to agricultural shows and market.
Emma felt it would be lovely to have a piece of jewellery that would link the three friends and so the brief was to create a design to acknowledge their bond, be representational of their links but above all be feminine. We talked about either making brooches or necklaces and so my designs showed adaptations to suit both.
Ivy has long represented the attachment of friendship
The chosen design features a circle to symbolise unity and infinity and has a shepherd’s crook linking through it to create a hanging section which in turn extends down to become the stem of the Ivy leaf. As an evergreen, Ivy has long been associated to represent the attachment of friendship and in each necklace, the texture of leaf veining has been added to enhance their delicacy.
As these pieces were made during the first Covid lockdown, Emma was waiting quite some time to get together with Liz and Amanda to give them their necklaces but as soon as they were able, they booked in a weekend to meet and I had ‘surpassed the interpretation of what was suggested’.