NEDbeads: March 2013

Finally!! The third piece in my trio of freeform is done! I started this while I was working on my Choose Your Own Adventure pieces (which are in my previous post; a blog hop hosted by my lovely friends Mandi Ainsworth and Karen Williams), when I intended to have a trio of bracelets to reveal on the day, but I only managed to finish two of them - and this one decided it had to be a necklace instead. I have to listen to the beads when they yell at me that loudly. So more soup was mixed, and off I went. Here is Runestones.

I am so happy with this necklace. It was a wonderful piece to work on, and looking at it now still makes me feel happy. I love the colors. I love the feel of it. Not just the feeling I get looking at it, but actually touching it - it's very textural and fun to stroke. The fringe on this one also lays just how I wanted it to; I used OneG to string the fringe and do the small bits of peyote, and it's very swingy and drapey. The center-most fringe is a peyote strip, which has a bezeled Amethyst claw at the end. Hanging from the focal stone is another center fringe which is tipped with a gorgeous copper freshwater pearl, also bezeled.

During the process, I thought of a beautiful, fictional woman whom I can't even rightly describe... long hair, with beads and braids and dreads and plain, brushed wavy locks mixed in, a flowing dress with medieval three quarter length sleeves, charms dangling from many bracelets, three large stoned rings on her slender, well kept hands, bending over a wooden table laden with scrolls and candles and jewels and leather journals, smooth polished bones, chunks of raw amethyst and rusted keys. In my mind's eye, this necklace was the result of a prophecy of some kind, the stones frozen in their tumble as they revealed their secrets...

The main body of the necklace is made with freeform peyote stitch, which connects to each of the embroidered focal stones. The amethyst 'claws' are on top of the base, and woven to it with more strands of peyote. The clasp is hand fabricated copper from one of my favorite metal workers and was custom made for me. I tried it on (OF COURSE I tried it on!!!!) and it's magnificently comfy and wearable and feels yummy on the neck, with nothing poking in or sticking out (which I always worry about when I make fringe or 'spiky' edges).

My Runestones necklace is made of a huge bead soup mix which includes the faceted Sugilite focals, the oval Sunstone beads (which have a glorious sparkly glitter-like matrix up close), amethyst 'claws', freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals, copper metal beads, vintage and modern glass and every kind of seed bead I own. There are dagger beads, drops, Czech cathedral crystals, Swarovski and cubic zirconia drops, faceted AAAgrade Amethyst beads, bugles, cubes... on and on. I hunted and pecked and used anything that looked like it might be talismanic, or that looked like it belonged.

I still have some soup left over, in fact!! Most of the bigger stones and such were used in this, but there are still some gorgeous things left in the soup, including two of the faceted Sugilite, some of the awesome Sunstone, and a carved Amethyst bead. I would really like to celebrate the completion of this project by giving away the remaining soup. I intend to add in a few more seed beads, and a few more crystal drops to round it out a bit, but below is the picture of the soup I'll be gifting. Leave me a comment, Teddy will pick a name. :) :) :)