Designing a New Necklace

Designing a New Necklace

 

 

I've been thinking about "How do I design a new necklace?" lately. I used to make most of my own clothes and had a similar dilema. Start with fabric first or a particular pattern? Well, it is much the same with a new necklace design.

 

Start with a particular technique (Chain Maille, Kumihimo or stringing) or design around some particular pendant or beads? Right now I need some new necklaces to go with a new top I recently purchased. That brings up another thought. Do I purchase clothes to go with my jewelry or make jewelry to go with new tops? (Mostly, I buy clothes to go with my jewelry)

 

The answer to all of the above questions is much the same. It all depends! And I use all of the methods and sometimes even combine the different methods. All that said, here is how I came to make my latest creation.

 

 

 

 

 

It started with a new top that required a necklace with some color to it. (The top is a neutral gray) I have about 5-8 pendants that I've collected over the last year from my trips to bead shows. One vendor in particular has great choices and it is hard to come home with only 6 - the quantity you need to purchase to get a better price per pendant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next decision was technique. I decided on Kumihimo for this one. (No particular reason other than I liked the colors in the pendant and thought I could find some nice seed beads that would go with the pendant) So, off the my local bead store where I found these two seed bead colors. Transparent Dark Topaz and Gunmetal Iris.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I usually always have cord on hand to make Kumihimo braids but when I got home with my seed beads, I found I was all out. But I did find some  red/maroon/purple/?? C-Lon. and added that to the mix of supplies. It adds some extra color to the finished braid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I loaded up my Kumihimo disk, mixing up the colors with 5 cords of the Gunmetal Iris and 3 of the Dark Topaz. If you make it an even number , 4 and 4, you end up with a spiral. That is very nice but I didn't feel it would look right with the design on the pendant. This is to be more "mixture".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nothing seemed to go smoothly in this project and after I started, I soon discovered that I had cut the cord too short for a necklace. So, the necklace project turned into a bracelet. No problem since it is nice to have a matching bracelet.

 

Here is the bracelet next to the pendant.  I do like the colors together. What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I admit, I still have not finished the project yet. I still need to add clasps to both pieces. (Thus the sort of "cut off" look in the pictures) I plan another trip to the bead store this week, or maybe search my stash here and finish the project. Sometimes I need to take a break in the process. ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've started another necklace project to go with my new top. Very different design. Much the same process, though, as this one. I started with another one of my pendants. And yes, I'll make a matching bracelet and probably earrings. This is a chain maille design. So far I like both projects. You'll see some pictures next week.

 

 

Colorful New Necklace

In Wednesday's post I showed you some new beads I had purchased on one of my field trips. I was concerned that they fell into the "What was I thinking category."

Last night, I decided to get busy and make a new necklace using these beads.

The first thing I noticed was that what I had thought was black was really a pretty clear dark blue. When the beads were close together on the temporary string, they indeed looked black but loose on my work surface you could see the beautiful blue.

So the first decision was to separate the beads. After many different tries, I settled on cobalt, 4 mm bicone crystals. They have the same sparkle and color.


I snuck out 2 beads to make matching earrings to complete the set.



Taking a picture was a challenge too, as usual. The changing colors were hard to capture and the cobalt bicones are hard to see in the necklace. This was the best I could do. What do you think?

B

www.bevsjewelry.com and www.bevsjewelry.1000markets.com

New Necklace

Bead browsing the other day I saw these "different" beads, oval and round beads in "gold" and black stripes. I added some plain black round beads and some black see beads for spacers.

Done!

Well, had to add a clasp, then done.

I like the results.

Sometimes things go together easily, like this time and sometimes the beads sit on my beading table for months.

Guess I'd better get out the ones sitting for awhile and see what happens. Maybe I'm on a roll.

B