Lovingly crafted jewellery

Having always harboured a passion for crafts, Jacky Menhennet became besotted with her friend's ganutell frame and was hooked on this Maltese tradition after just one lesson.

Her experience in cross stitching and crochet meant Jacky already had a knack for the trade and after learning the basics she continued learning under the expert guidance of Gozitan Angela Cardona.

After creating a number of stunning ganutell pieces, from a bride's bouquet to a tiara, she concentrated her efforts on the painstaking work known as ix-xoghol tal-monasteri (monastery work).

"This is actually a German trade called Klosterarbeiten which is slowly dying out and it took me several weeks to recreate a number of pieces," said Jacky.

Jacky yesterday had her first one-day exhibition, which was hosted at the home of her sister, Karen Calleja, in San Pawl tat-Targa.

The exhibition had a wide range of jewellery, each one unique and lovingly crafted from beads, glass, crystals, fresh water pearls and bohemian and Mdina glass.

"It was very hard to decide to part with my work, but it would be impossible to continue buying material and never selling any of the items," she said.

Jacky never had any intention to start handcrafting jewellery, but last July her sisters pushed her to make necklaces for their birthdays and she has not looked back since.

One necklace can contain more than 12,000 beads, but Jacky just loves the end product and this is what keeps her going even when the design becomes repetitive.

"Sometimes it can get a bit boring, but I always complete a piece. I never put it down unless it's finished. I just love seeing something take shape from a bag of beads," she enthused.

She has been so busy creating original jewellery that these days she does much less work on ganutell.

Jacky has also crafted Bonsai trees and palm trees from beads - the trunk of the tree and the little dates of the palm tree are all made from beads. One tree can take up to 35,000 beads and 80 hours of patience to create.

Jacky has also mastered the 17th century art of French beading and she has created bouquets of flowers which are so real that you can be forgiven for trying to sniff them.

Her latest masterpiece is beaded Christmas baubles which she has refused to sell and hopes they will one day become her family heirloom.