Moon and stars necklace

[weaverbird]

I'm new to working with wire - most of my stuff is beadweaving - and they say the only way to get competent is to practice, so I made this necklace as a practice piece for making wrapped loops.


click for a bigger picture

I used 24 ga dead soft copper wire, and miscellaneous cobalt glass beads I've had around for years - three different batches, none of which were enough to make anything by themselves. And it did the trick - my wrapped-loop skills, which started off pretty shaky, are much better now! *g*

Comments

[weaverbird]

Well, I've been picking up beads here and there for a long time. *g* Much of my stash is seed beads, but there are lots of little bits of this and that - either left over from earlier projects, or tiny quantities bought because they were too pretty NOT to buy, but which sometimes take forever to find uses for.

These beads break down as follows: the large triangles with the gold imprinting were one batch, the tiny cubes I used as spacers were a second, and the other beads, including the two sizes of unprinted triangles, were the third. I used a bead board to lay them out this way and that until I found an order that pleased me, both before I started wrapping and during the process. The order changed several times before I was really satisfied.

It does hang well, thank goodness! The triple strand is only the front portion of the necklace; the back third is a single strand of seed beads on beading wire. I intend to wear it under a shirt, so the back won't be seen. This design allowed me to put all the pretty in plain sight.

As for what I'd do differently, the links between the front and back sections are clumsily done. I know now how to do them more gracefully and I might go back and re-do them. Of course the wrapped loops vary in size and shape throughout the piece, but that was kind of the point. My latest wrapped-loop piece is much more uniform. :D

Making useful things as a learning process is something I got from handweaving, where sampling, as it's called, is a big part of the craft.

Thanks for commenting - I'm tickled that you found the project interesting!

[seryn]

You certainly did get better!

I'm glad it hangs well... sometimes those kinds of things get jumbled up on themselves. I've seen it in store-bought necklaces. And there's probably an element of that in dresses that look good on the hanger but look awful on a body.

I really enjoy hearing about why a project was successful and what choices or planning went into it.