My name is Natalia Orlova; I live in the wonderful city of Odessa, at the very Black Sea. Like many other girls, when I was a child, my friends and I wove simple beaded things like bracelets. But we grew up, our hobbies have changed, and I've forgotten about beads for a while.
One day, when I was still a little girl, my parents and I drove past the Odessa Polytechnic Institute, and when I saw that nice building, I immediately announced that I would study there after my high school. And so it was, after school I enrolled in the Faculty of Economics. Probably, it was hard to imagine a profession more distant from creation of jewelry. However, I had another dream - to learn how to create beauty, and perhaps I made it true through working with soutache.
Like many women I was fascinated again with beaded things when I was on maternity leave. I tried to grasp the immensity and experimented with all techniques that I liked, I really wanted to learn beaded braids knitting, but I couldn't get this "complex" science that time. And once, when I was once again looking for a new pattern over the Internet, I stumbled on a free tutorial on the soutache bracelet by Anneta Valious.
I saw... and immediately fell in love with those curls, smooth lines and a surprising lightness of soutache jewelry! Almost immediately I rushed to the closest crafting goods store to look for this wonderful material, but everything wasn't so simple. All shop sellers have not even heard about this cord. Somehow I could manage to get my "treasure", just a few meters of soutache of colors that didn't match each other.
Naturally, that soutache was of questionable quality, too soft for my inept hands. I still keep in a the box my first bracelet made from the terrible bright purple soutache and Chinese beads with other jewelry, perhaps as a reminder of "how it all began" or "how it should not be done". Of course, later I bought a "right" soutache and changed Chinese beads to Czech and then to Japanese ones.
At work, I always try to make each piece as gently as possible, often rip and alter the elements and try to diversify my activity and develop new techniques. For example, now I use shibori silk ribbon and elements embroidered on canvas. I'm learning from other masters, I use as examples works of Anneta Valious, Jadwiga Betley and Julia Izerskaya.
I had created soutache jewelry for about two years when I decided to try my hands at competitions. At first, they were small contests in social networks. To my shame, I could not even get into the first five, not to mention the fact that I haven't won prizes. So when I applied for the Fashion Colorworks 2015, I didn't have much hope and even getting into the final seemed like a pipe dream.
I like working in tight frameworks in some conditions, so the idea of making jewelry in the specified colors immediately captivated me. I watched the contest in 2014 and has firmly decided to try my hands next year. Once MyLovelyBeads.com announced triads for the 2015 contest, I proceeded to the selection of materials and thinking on sketches of my future entry.
Probably, I came to the task too thoroughly because stretched my pleasure and nearly missed deadlines to send my application! Finally, all the difficulties were behind me and the long wait of the results announcement started. At first, I could not believe my eyes when I saw my work on the list of finalists.
I was very glad, however, when I saw the entries of the other finalists I felt that I won't be able to make the top three winners. Could you imagine my surprise when they announced the winners, I was one of them! There is always room to grow and strive, and victory in this competition is a huge stimulus to the development and improvement! I am very grateful to the organizers of the contest, the distinguished jury and the participants for such an island of joy and positivity in our noisy world!
My gallery on MyLovelyBeads.com
About author:
| Natalia Orlova, Odessa, Ukraine | |
| Email: | orlova34@te.net.ua |
| Facebook: | facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004815542010 |
