Silken Sea Necklace

For me, designing a necklace is like working with the pieces of a puzzle that you yourself create. I bought some gorgeous large peacock coin pearls with a fabulous lustre a few months ago, and they have been in the back of my mind since then. I knew I had to make a spectacular necklace to highlight their gorgeous qualities.

Since I had a lot of errands to do today and didn't really have time to get into a lot of metalwork, I pulled the peacock pearls out and began to play with the puzzle. Besides these large, gorgeous, smooth ones, I had some medium sized peacock coin pearls as well. I decided I wanted to use some of those, in part to lower the overall cost of the necklace and, in part because I liked the contrast their crinkly surface provided with the larger coins.

My necklaces tend to have seed beads of some sort between the main beads, because I like the fact that they are therefore visually separated and therefore each is highlighted more. I, happily, had some small amethyst beads, as well as some glass seed beads that I knew would be perfect. Same for the lovely, delicate, translucent amethyst coin beads I had. But the necklace lacked something: a piece of the puzzle was missing....

If you read yesterday's post, you know by now that I'm not one who keeps a really neat studio. In this case, that was a lucky thing, as my eye fell on a strand of aquamarine rondelles lying nearby. If I had put that strand away, I might not have seized on it as the perfect thing. I grabbed for it and -- yes: the missing piece! I loved how the pool of watery bluish-green highlighted and complemented the intense color of the peacock pearls. The aquamarine looks like it is a drop of water from a warm and shallow sea, and the peacock pearls have the deep, reflective colors of an ocean in the moonlight.

The rest of the necklace was easy to put together once the main puzzle pieces were in place. All that lacked was the name.... I chose Silken Sea Necklace because the large peacock pearls remind me of a beautiful silken taffeta shot through with wondrous hues, and the aquamarine inspired the "Sea." So, all done, photographed, listed on etsy AND I even got a lot of errands done as well!