I mentioned in an earlier post that I’d caught the Olympic bug and decided to express that with a new design. Well, after many hours of thought, experimentation and beading, here it is: my Olympic inspired necklace! Just in time for the Paralympic Games and this time around, these seem extra special as they are returning for the first time to their birthplace in Stoke Mandeville, which isn’t so very far from me. So, good luck to all the athletes involved, not to mention the organisers (who include a friend of mine – very much looking forward to the experience).
Anyway, back to the necklace! This project went through quite a process of design and development, so I thought it might be quite fun to share that with you. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make something involving linked beaded rings (ok, so not that original!). I decided to stick to the colouring of the Olympic rings to begin with, although there is plenty of potential for playing with interesting colour combinations here, but I will leave that for some future development. I have seen a few projects involving rings made from beads and I know I can make these using a couple of different stitches, so that was decision one: which technique to use? I elected to go back to my old favourite: Peyote stitch, although I am thinking about a RAW variation, so watch this space!
I began by making a 3-dimensional ring and I had planned to link these together into some kind of chain. It took a few experiments to determine the number of beads I needed in my base circle. I had imagined that any number would work, so started out with a ring that gave me a nice big opening to allow for the linking later on. However, it transpired that 60 beads in the base circle led to a rather crinkled ring that really didn’t work at all. I kept scaling down until I found the right number and learned along the way that there is definitely a right and wrong proportion for this. I’m sure there is some rule of geometry that I have neglected or forgotten, but which would have told me this without all the random experiments along the way, but there we go! I ended up with a 3-dimensional ring that lay flat with the beads I was using (I have a sneaking suspicion that I may find I need to alter the starting number again if I try this pattern with different beads, but that’s an experiment for another day!). However, I wasn’t sure that the central opening would be big enough to accommodate two more links.
Meanwhile, as I was beading this 3-dimensional version, I discovered that the flat circle I created on the way was actually very attractive. So, time for a little evolution: I decided to create links using the flat circles instead. Decision time again: should I abandon the three-dimensional circles and create a full length of linked flat circles? Or perhaps forget creating the links and just work with my 3-dimensional circles? No, much better to combine both! So I’ve ended up with a necklace that uses two sections of linked flat circles and then three sections of 3-dimensional circles linked with Peyote tubes. Last problem: what clasp to use? I could have tried something I had bought, but given that the rest of the necklace contained only beads, it seemed a pity to introduce some metal in the clasp, so I made my own beaded toggle clasp. The 3-dimensional circle leant itself to one half of the clasp and I just needed to make the toggle. I felt this complemented the overall design and just finished things off well. This leaves me not only with a new pattern to sell here or perhaps teach at some future point, but also a lot of useful lessons that I plan on developing, so keep watching out for a few more designs along the theme of chain and links!
