From the Earth to My Workbench

There’s another reason the words Au Natural feel so right to me.

 

Many of the beads I work with started life looking nothing like the beautiful polished gemstones you see in a finished piece of Zebredellas® jewellery.

 

They began as rough material formed naturally within the earth.

 

Once recovered, gemstone material is sorted and selected before beginning its transformation. Depending on the stone and the finished shape required, it may be sawn into smaller pieces, shaped and ground, then gradually polished to reveal the colour, pattern and character that was hiding inside the rough stone all along.

 

For jewellery beads, another tiny but incredibly important job has to happen — each stone needs to be drilled so that one day it can be threaded.

 

And that’s the part of their journey where I eventually come in.

 

By the time a strand of gemstones arrives on my workbench, quite a lot has already happened to it. I then choose individual beads for their colour, markings, texture and how they sit alongside one another. I mix them, move them around, change my mind — often several times! — until the combination feels right.

 

Then I knot, thread and construct them by hand into the finished piece.

 

Perhaps that’s also why I don’t worry about every gemstone being absolutely identical.

 

Nature doesn’t work like a factory.

 

One piece of Jasper can look completely different from the next. Agates have their own bands and markings. Tiger’s Eye catches the light differently from bead to bead. Labradorite can suddenly reveal a flash of colour when you turn it in your hand.

 

Those little variations aren’t imperfections to me.

 

They’re evidence of where the story began.

 

From the earth, through the hands of the people who cut and polish the stone, to my workbench in Cheshire — and finally to the person who wears it.

 

Quite a journey for one little bead.

 

— Karen Founder, Zebredellas®