Fit for a Princess

Hello folks, hope you are well this fine morning. The sun is shining and all's well with the world - well not all, given recent events in the UK, but it feels like it in the sunshine. Those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere know the importance of going out in the sunshine and basking in the rays - we see the sun so little. I've was out in the garden, weeding and sorting out the pot plants, spraying the roses and generally getting my hands dirty.

---

Between times, I embarked on my most ambitious project yet. A client in India handed me an old necklace of her's to remake - two strands of lovely jet beads with a few tarnished diamante spacers, and when I told her I was planning to make a soutache pendant in blue, she said she'd prefer green. So I picked a couple of colour treated green solar quartz cabochons out from my stash and started to think about what I was going to do with them.

The jet beads were so shiny and beautiful, it had to be an evening necklace. I decided to add diamante chain, and a couple of beetle wings to the mix with no idea about what I was going to do with them. I fixed the cabochons and wings onto Lacy's Stiff Stuff which is a felted stiff card for beading and set out to put them all into beaded bezels - by now I had decided that it would be a two part pendant, with the wings flanking the oval stone, 

---

​ I beaded away well into the night every evening after work. It was like watching a story unfold as I really had no set plan - the whole thing was evolving as I went along and I was keen to see how the piece would look at the end. I made the bottom part of the pendant first and embellished it with beads  and soutache braids that accentuated the green of the cabochon and the jet beads in the necklace. 

---

And then came the top - the cabochon was vaguely teardrop shaped and I had to decide which way it was going to hang - with the pointy end or the broader end, and place the ends of the soutache braid accordingly. Decisions, decisions! 

---

At last it was time to see how the two went together, and hey presto, it was a good fit. My only criticism was it looked a bit top heavy, so I had to come up with some way to increase the bulk of the lower half.

---

I added another row of Japanese Miyuki square glass beads and edged the top part of the piece with green crystals, as by this time I had decided that this pendant required, nay, deserved, a tasseled fringe.

---

This piece was becoming a tour de force - and I toiled over the tiny beads every night, only stopped by the fact that I ran out of the pale green crystal beads and had to order some more, praying that the colour would match the ones I had already used. If they didn't, I was getting ready mentally to cut the fringe out and start again with the new string of beads as nothing was going to stop this baby from being a beauty.
Fortunately for me, the colours matched and I finished the fringe off - all I needed was four more beads, wouldn't it have been such a shame if I had to start over for the want of four beads? That'll teach me to count my beads before I start! For one reason and another, work was ever so busy but this pendant occupied my evenings so gainfully that the week flew by.
The back was lined with blue felt to add colour between the Miyuki squares and the whole thing backed with black ultrasuede. And finally, it was time to join up the two halves of the pendant.
I strung the jet beads simply, using little green seed beads as spacers, and an extension chain with a Baroque crystal on the end and it was done.

Ta Dah!! - The final reveal

Would you agree that it is fit for a princess?? I certainly think so and hope that Omana, for whom it is designed, agrees with me. I hope she feels like a princess when she wears it - I know there's nothing like it in Bangalore where she lives and she should certainly have all eyes on her at whatever event she decides to wear it to Here she is in another piece by Caprilicious. I can so see her in this necklace, can you??

---

That's me for this week folks, have a fabulous week and I'll catch you next weekend, same time, same place. Until then
​xx