What jewelry you wear depends on what clothes you wear, right? Typically, you don’t wear a macramé jute necklace with a ball gown, correct?
My husband made me giggle till tears came the other night when he was going through his dress shirts and getting rid of the tired ones. You know the ones with frayed edges on the collar and sleeves. I asked him if he could keep them as work shirts and he looked at me askance and said sarcastically, “Yeah, honey, I always wear business clothes to replace broken sprinkler heads…”
LMAO but I digress…
I wanted some longer necklaces that I could wear with sweaters.
The first thing to decide is the length of the necklace. As systematic humans always have to organize and label things, I will list here the typical lengths of necklaces and the name to which they are referred; beginning with the shortest to the longest.
Collar-14″, Choker-16″, Princess-18″, Matinee-20″, Opera-24″, Rope or Lariat-30-33″
Now, of course, with all things, there is variation on this theme. This is a generalized scheme. It all depends on you. My recommendation is that you grab one of your favorite necklaces and then measure it. The beauty of making your own is that you make it your own-you tailor it to what you want and not what is dictated by the masses.
If you don’t have a variety of necklaces, do an internet search of length of necklaces and a plethora of images (diagrams and pictures) will pop and you can study these to suit your purposes. Sometimes, you only have a set number of beads and that will dictate the length. The beauty of using chain is that you use less beads and can make a longer necklace if you so desire.
One important step: Try it on before it is totally finished so you can see how it looks.
I decided to choose a copper chain and amber/gold beads. I call this my animal print necklace because some of the beads are striped. The beauty of mixing metals is that you can then make a variety of earrings that match but can be worn with other necklaces as well.
Less beads and more chain seem to be popular right now so that is what I am focusing on today but keep coming back and I promise down the road that I will be demonstrating other creations that involve more beads.
Because we all love beads, right???
First, I selected the beads and then constructed the bead sections. These beads remind me of the popular Pandora beads but don’t have the same price tag per bead. Good golly! You’ve got to be kidding me, 400 bucks for one bead??? The ones I found are a lot less expensive.
Then I chose some smaller beads for the in-between sections.
You might have noticed that I chose a pin with a pre-made loop in the end; an eyepin. More expensive but this saves time as you only have to make one loop after placing your choice of beads. Making the loop congruent with the pre-made one isn’t as easy as you think. Two good demos can be found on YouTube by Beadeducation.com, Making Basic Loops Part 1 and 2.
One difference from the video is that I prefer that the loops that are parallel to each other as opposed to perpendicular. These pictures demonstrate this orientation of the loops.
The next step is determining the length of chain between the bead sections. Originally, based on the final length, I decided on three inches of chain to separate beads. With this particular chain, three inches equaled approximately 20 links.
I like to count the links because then I know that each section matches exactly. Then you open the last link and attach it to the bead section.
In regard to the final two lengths of chain around the back of your neck: one side needs to be one or two links shorter depending on the size difference of your clasp and jump ring to make necklace hang properly. (Sorry about the blurry photo.)
Sometimes you’ll find that you don’t like what initially you thought would look good on you. Like trying on that cute pair of pants and looking in the dressing room mirror at your backside. Unfortunately, these days, the thought of “Not so much” runs through my mind more than I care for…
But I digress…
When I constructed the first sections, I didn’t like the look. The beads were too far apart for my tastes. Also when I did a preliminary drape around my neck, I found that my original idea of bead placement made the necklace hang awkwardly.
So I started reconstruction.
I ended up using eight link sections instead of 20 and I put the smaller in-between bead section at the center of the necklace instead of the larger beads as it gave a rounded look based on the weight distribution.
Here is the finished product:
Next project: Same theme but a little different take: Springtime Necklace
