Sunday, October 17, 2010

Green Paua Shell Necklace

I made this necklace sometime last month --- it took a long time to do, and I'm hugely proud of it.
Its centerpiece is this large green paua shell bead, which I've had for years but only now thought up a jewelry design worthy of it:
The things I'm proudest of about this design, from a technical standpoint, are 1) the little square frames of light-green beads surrounding the dark-green faceted glass beads (which you can see pretty well in the top two photos) and 2) the way I managed to taper the wide sweep of beads framing the shell into two little cones that come together at the clasp.
I like wide, many-stranded designs in necklaces and bracelets, but until I hit on this tapering method --- spacing the strands wider at the bottom than at the sides, where only half of them pass through the beaded spacer bar, and leading up to the clasp with two more beaded spacers (this time rings) through which the halving process can be repeated --- I had problems with making my many-stranded necklace drape properly.
When I wear them, they naturally tend to curl up into a tube at the back, near the clasp. Using this method, where four strands radiate out from the clasp and gradually ramify into the thirteen strands supporting the shell, allows the necklace to stay in tube shape until it gets to about the level of the clavicle, where it wants to be flatter anyway.

8 comments:

Sadie said...

That's really beautiful! Thank you for sharing!

Clay said...

That centerpiece is an abalone shell? I have one just like the one pictured, (bought it on eBay). It's about 8" long, silver-gray, with some blue in the center. Did you cut and polish that one, or get it as is?

Melissa said...

That is absolutely gorgeous! Do you sell your jewelry?

Lindsay said...

@Clay - yes, it is. (I didn't know pauas were a subset of abalone until I read that Wikipedia page, but they are). I bought this one (which is maybe 3" long --- I'm amazed that you've got an 8" one, wow) at a jewelry store in Iowa City, IA. It came already cut, polished and with a hole drilled through it.

Lindsay said...

@Melissa - yes, I do sell jewelry!

I've got an Etsy store here - shardsofelegance

I haven't listed this particular piece yet, because I'm still working out what I should charge for it, but it should be on there soon.

Clay said...

Um, might be some misunderstanding here. I meant I have the whole (half) abalone shell, as pictured in the link. I like the iridescent interior, nice little home they have.

Lindsay said...

Oh, that does make more sense.

jane said...

Stunning!