For some reason when I run across something that I like, I will hang on to it forever. Every piece in this necklace was given to me at some point. The gold beads I had forever, given to me by a friend of a friend who was getting out of beading. The bugle beads came from a box of beads I received as a Christmas gift. The pearls made their way to my craft room with a bunch of other beads when I mentioned to my friend (Who will be referred to henceforth as "Dee") Dee that I wanted to get into beading. With that small stash came a container with a broken bracelet inside. A few months later, I helped my mother move, and during the move she gave me the large crystal focal. She knows how much I adore shiny things. Now, all these things sat in my craft room within feet of each other. I would always pull out individual pieces and want to do something with them, but I never knew what they wanted to be.
Once I finished my first necklace I was hooked. I wanted to capture that large crystal in a bezel. I started to use the gold on it and hated the colors that it brought out in the crystal so I dropped the crystal into a bowl of clear beads. Then the light hit it just right and every little bead was reflected inside the crystal. so I started working on an open backed peyote bezel. The first was way to small. So was the second and third and fourth. It took me 7 different attempts before I finally got that crystal encased. I can't even begin to describe the frustration. The only thing that saved me from throwing the whole thing away was the watching the light play off the crystal as I worked. once I got that part done, it sat for a few weeks on the table, just glaring at me. I didn't know what else to do with it until I started going through the other things Dee had brought over. I found that broken bracelet, and found these heart shaped chips that matched my crystal. I turned them into drops, with some wire wrapping. That is when I finally had an idea of what I wanted this crystal to be.
I did a few layers of graduated fringe, embellished the bezel. It became this pendant. The rope is a cellini spiral. I used the same embellishments on the peyote stitch toggle clasp.
Now for the things I don't like about this piece:
The bugle bead picoting is a pain. Every time I wear it I have to rearrange how they sit, and they never stay put. I am not happy with the way the pendant is connected. While wearing, it hangs right, but when hanging free, the rope bends the picoting forward. I was using nymo thread to assemble the whole thing start to finish, and apparently my knotting was not up to par because the rope is now unraveling in several spots. I have yet to fix this. I will also need to get a better picture of it. Some of the detail in the fringe is lost while sitting on the flat surface
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