Sunday 7 October 2012

Paula's Chakra Necklace

So I took a small break from beading after the momentous piece that is the Heroine Necklace to let my fingers recover and my hands stop being claws!

I was commissioned to make a Chakra Necklace from Rob to Paula, Xander's masseuse.  Xander has been going to see her every other week for the past couple of years and her massage is amazing.  She is absolutely astounding and specialises in soothing massage for kids with all sorts of disabilities, not just autism.  Her patience is amazing and Xander sleeps brilliantly after each session.  Over the years we've become friends and often have dinner together.  Rob decided he wanted something beautiful for her birthday and asked me to make a piece that I would not make again so that it was completely unique to Paula.  He wanted to incorporate chakra colours so that it had meaning for her and the base colour to be a muted copper or bronze.

This is what I came up with:
I used 12mm Swarovski rivolis in Siam, Padparadscha, Sahara, Emerald, Sapphire, Heliotrope and Tanzanite and set them using 3mm bronze firepolished rounds, bronze 15s and Matte Metallic Dark Bronze delicas, adapting a technique used by Sabine Lippert in her book Beaded Fantasies.

Here you can see a close up of the stones and their settings:

In this photo you can see the reverse of the rivolis and just about make out Sabine's very clever way of bezelling so that the stones are safe in their little cocoons but the front shows as much of the colour and sparkle as possible.  The bezels look pretty and show off much more of the stone than the usual peyote bezel that I use and are blooming quick to make - most of the time!  Getting the stone to sit in and close the netted back up is quite fiddly, especially seeing as the netted flaps want to leap open when adding the row of 15s round the centre!  I'm pretty certain that this is more to do with my tension rather than the design - I'm a very tight beadweaver and like to keep everything quite stiff so that I know nothing will slip out!

As I was making the herringbone rope I decided that it looked really odd with both sides plain herringbone so every 20 rows I inserted a couple of the 3mm firepolished rounds with a couple of the 15s either side but only on one side.  I think this slight alteration in the rope gave the necklace a little more balance than if it had been plain both sides.
The side with the stones is completely plain and just a simple 4-bead herringbone rope.

Rob's coming to pick it up today and I really hope Paula likes it when she opens it on Tuesday.

11 comments:

  1. Hello:
    Nice to see Your new beadwork and read about it again.
    The necklace is beautiful:simple,modest,but decorative and elegant at the same time.I feel like those good times of the really good beadwork have returned.I feel the real 'relief' ,on having seen such examples of good and precisse work.I also had had a month of break and coming back to beading slowly.Meanwhile,which is rather sad ,I noticed,that almost all the prefect beading on Blogger has gone :-(I can see 'spikes' used everywhere and I do not like specially the 'predatory' beading.
    Warm Hugs-and waiting for more news from You-Halinka-

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi sweetie. Glad you like the necklace. I've just passed it to Rob all neatly boxed so that he can give it to Paula on Tuesday for her birthday.
      How strange that you don't like the spikes? I really love them and have bought some so that I can make myself a really cruel bracelet. But then fashions change and soon we will all return to the usual, just with added ingredients!
      Warm hugs from a chilly UK xxx

      Delete
  2. That is such a brilliant design; I absolutely love it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much, goodness knows how I came up with it because it's not my usual style at all!

      Delete
  3. It's very fantastic work ;-))

    ReplyDelete
  4. Elegant....love it! Having the chain different on one side is brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cool design & attractive colors

    ReplyDelete
  6. Would like to purchase one. It is unique. How much would you charge?

    ReplyDelete