Monika Wiklund

For this necklace, I wanted to make a “frame” for the heart-shaped seashell pendant using black and silver-colored seed beads. At first, I tried using peyote stitch but that did not work very well so I decided to go for the RAW stitch instead. It was a bit tricky to get it together, and it took some experimenting to get it right, but I really like the result.

From the start I was considering making a necklace from seed beads as well, but when I had completed the frame of the pendant I realized that it would steal the focus of the pendant, so I went for a simple suede string necklace instead and made a seed bead bracelet to go with the necklace. Even though I used the RAW stitch for the pendant frame, I used the peyote stitch for the bracelet and used some more suede string as the core of the bracelet.

Photography by Kristian.

This is a little longer “chain” necklace of dark blue, oval seashell beads, round coral beads, and seashell flower beads that I made from the materials left over when I created my first coral and seashell flower necklace. The two different necklaces use basically the same beads, but the implementation and end results are very different.

In this picture, the beads are shown in more detail, showing the shimmer of the seashell beads and the texture of the coral beads as well as how they have been made into a chain with the help of eye pins.

Photography by Kristian.

I like tigereye beads, and this is one of several necklaces I have made with tigereye. This necklace is a little bit special though, since the larger tigereye nuggets comes from a necklace that belonged to my aunt who died about a year ago. The original necklace was made entirely from tigereye nuggets, and I salvaged the beads to make new jewelry out of them. This is the first resulting necklace, and I combined the larger tigereye nuggets with some smaller faceted tigereye beads and larger lava stone beads with bead caps. I think that this photo makes it look great, and whenever I look at it I think about my aunt who I spent a lot of time with as a kid.

Photography by Kristian.

Purple is one of my favorite colors, so when I found these lilacstone beads I figured I wanted to see what I could do with them. For this necklace I only used three different sizes of lilacstone beads and some spacers, but I have also made a necklace with lilacstone beads combined with amethyst and lava stone beads that I think turned out even better and that I have been using quite a bit.

The colors of the beads vary from a very light purple that is almost white to a pretty dark purple, but most of them was somewhere in-between, which made it a bit difficult to select the beads to produce the pattern with a dark bead in the middle of each group of five beads and successively lighter beads towards the edges and the spacer beads.

Photography by Kristian.

I love the combination of the orange carnelian and the black agate in this bracelet. The colors are great, but the fastening of the clasp could have been better. This was my first try at using the Right Angle Weave in a bracelet, and I had yet to figure out how to make the transition from the weave to the clasp. Otherwise I think that the small,  heart-shaped, magnetic clasp fit the bracelet very well, but the fastening could have been a lot better.

Photography by Kristian.

I am not sure if “desert sun” is the correct name for this kind of beads, but that is what they were called when I bought them. I think the name comes from the effect of the glittering pattern of the beads, but I am also pretty sure I have seen the same kind of beads under other names even though I can’t remember any other names at the moment.

It is a bit difficult to describe the colors of this necklace, the desert sun beads have a weird beige-pink hue that is almost skin-colored, and the larger cut beads vary a bit in color even though most of them are purple, white, turquoise, and in some cases copper or clouded glass as well.

The small metal beads are used as spacers between the two sizes of desert sun beads and the larger multi-colored glass beads to give it a lighter feeling and to add some contrast to the more discrete colors of the beads.

Photography by Kristian.

My first try at making a tubular peyote bracelet using the uneven peyote stitch technique.  I wanted to try to make something using the tubular technque because I thought it would create a nice effect, but at the same time I thought it was best to start small since I had a limited supply of seed beads and because I wanted to see the result fairly quickly. I started stitching around a plastic chop stick, but it kept falling out so I replaced it with the leather band which I also used for a very simple clasp.

In the beginning, I was not quite sure how  the pattern would turn out, and it took a couple of tries to figure out what happens with the different layers, but I think that it turned out fairly well considering that I am new to the technique.

Photography by Kristian.

Is it strange to combine a black wooden pendant with red agates, black lava stone, and a dark chain? The pendant is rather light compared to the rest of the necklace, which might feel strange at first, but I still think that this necklace turned out very well. It took me a while to figure out what to do with the pendant, and especially what to put in the hole at the top of the pendant. When I started experimenting with different beads, I found that the small round red agate fit almost perfectly, and since I like the combination of red and black I continued the theme with the other stone beads and added the thick dark chain.

Close-up of the wooden pendant, showing the red agate and the butterfly pattern of the pendant. I really like this kind of pendant, and I have a black rose silhouette pendant that is waiting to be used, as well as an older dark brown pattern pendant that I used for another necklace some time ago.

Photography by Kristian.

For this necklace,I wanted to achieve a slightly primitive feeling using wood and metal beads strung on a thick suede cord.

The metal “sword” pendant makes me think of celtic patterns, I liked it the moment I found it and just had to order it. Once I got it, it took me a while to figure out what to make of it, since I didn’t want to pull the focus away from the pendant. Also, I wanted to make a necklace that could be worn by either a man or a woman.

The necklace turned out ok, but I think it might be even better with something other than the metal barrels between the wooden beads. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything that would fit in better when I made the necklace so  it will have to do until I find something else, and maybe I will be able to rebuild it later.

Photography by Kristian.