Beading by Malin de Koning: Michael's challenge

Hi,

I just love the whole concept of this project, and I am so much looking forward to see what everyone has done with the same beads. At the bottom of this post you will find the list of all the other participants with links to their blogs.

The set-up:

This is the lot we all started with. Pale green jade rounds, brown cinnabar carved coins, ivory cinnabar carved coins, white big pearls, small green pearls, wooden carved cubes and a white enameled chain. From the shop Michael's in the USA. (Mary Harding was so wonderful and got me the beads and sent them to me by post, since Michael's don't have an online shop.) We were supposed to make a necklace with all of these beads included. And we were allowed to also add two more kinds of beads from our own stash, a focal and a clasp of our own choosing.

Lorelei, I just love what you picked for us to work with! It is a wonderful combination of colours, materials, sizes and structures. So very very appetizing! I also love the fact that you arranged this whole thing. I certainly wish there will be more of this kind of design-sharing-challenges.

This is what I made:

I have decided to describe my design process rather thouroughly on this one, I don't normally do that, but I really appreciate to read when others do, so I thought I would have a go aswell.

The basic design:

A three-strand necklace, with two beaded strands and the white chain as its own strand. I quickly got this idea with the three-stranded necklace. The two beaded strands have their own repetetive "pattern", one is symmetrical, the other assymetrical. This is so there will be more variable and interesting meetings between the beads when they hang around the neck. They are strung on soft flexible beading wire. Almost all of the beads have been used, not even a handful is left.

The focal:

The wonderful big bead by HumbleBeads was just too good to be true to go with these beads. I recieved it only a couple of days before the parcel from Michaels, as a part of a "grab-bag" purchase I had made from HumbleBeads. Was that a lucky chance or what? Because the focal in itself isn't so big or standing out in comparision to the many different kinds of bold and expressive beads in this necklace I decided the focal would sit assymetrically to the side instead of centrally. I wanted it to merge in with the rest but just create something unexpected and extra. I exchanged one of the green-blue-green sections on one of the strands for the focal together with some blue seed beads (just to make the same length as the other sections). This didn't fit well with the brown cinnabar coin that happened to sit on the other strand just there, so I decided to take that one away and put some pearls there instead. This way the focal became more visable than it otherwise would have been.

The two extra types of beads:

The blue in the focal made it easy for me to pick the blue rice-shaped beads as one of my own additions. And I wanted the necklace to be a bit longer so I also added some small white pearls the same size as the green ones from Michaels.

The clasp:

Beacause I wanted the necklace to come further down on the chest than the chain allowed I created this solution for the clasp. Two dark wooden rings to which the three strands are attached, and then just a long wide brown silk ribbon through them. You simply tie a knot and a bow to make the necklace as long as you wish. I realize some of you might think I have stretched the rules slightly with this solution, adding more elements than said. But hey... if everyone always followed all rules we would still be in the stone-age. Anyway, to attach the chain to the wooden rings I made two horse-shoe shaped jumprings in bronze coloured 18 gauge wire, and I also did some hammering to make them sit nicely on the rings. Very pleased with that little detail, since I bought my teny tiny anvil just very recently and am very glad whenever I need to use it and actually have it right there in my studio. And yes Gaea, you were right, I like to hammer on loads of things.

The other participants with links to their blogs:

On Lorelei's blog you will find her own result and also the photos from a few more participants who don't have a blog (she forgot to list herself in the list below...). So make sure you also check that one out thoroughly.