Monika Wiklund

This necklace is just a variation of a couple of my earlier necklaces that I have posted about, but with other colors and a small silver-foil heart instead of an angel pendant. As in the earlier versions, the necklace is made using the tubular netting tecnique and in this case I used a combination of 11/0 white, blue and black seed beads.

There is also a matching bracelet to go with the necklace, and the toggle clasp in both the necklace and the bracelet are in the shape of a small metal heart.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace was created as a side-effect of our preparations for going to Medeltidsveckan in Visby this summer. I was looking for beads to try out some different ideas for medieval styled jewelry, and among other things I found these turquoise clay beads that I bought because I liked the color.

When I started to make the necklace, I realized that I was exactly one metal bead short of being able to use all of the clay beads and when I was looking for ways to work around that little problem, I found a blue glass leaf that I have had for some time and never used. I decided to use the leaf as a pendant, and I think that it turned out very well even though the pendant is not exactly the same color as the clay beads.

Of course, the necklace does not match the medieval style clothing that I made for medeltidsveckan,  but I think that it works great together with a turquoise blouse that I have used it together with.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace is at the same time a variation of an old idea and an experiment with a for me new stitch. The earlier versions of angel necklaces that I have made have consisted of a single threaded necklace with an angel pendant, but I wanted to create something with a bit more volume to it, so I decided to try making a necklace with the tubular net stitch this time.

I had a bit of a problem picking out the colors of the necklace since I realized a bit too late that the sees beads I had were not always matched in size or even enough to use for this purpose, but finally I decided to go for this combination of white, black and pink. At first I was a bit skeptical about the colors, but they grew on me and I think that the end result is pretty good. Of course, the pink highlights in the tubular netting necklace are not very clearly visible, but I think that they work very well in combination with the mostly black and white net and of course they are matched with the small angel charm as well.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace was actually my first try for making a necklace to go with the dress I borrowed for my sisters wedding. I wanted something to match the green pattern along the edge of the dress and that would match the medieval fantasy theme of the wedding, and I think that I succeeded fairly well in my intention even though I also made a second try which was the necklace that I ended up wearing for the wedding.

When I tried the necklaces together with the dress I decided that I wanted the longer necklace with dark stone beads instead, even though this one also works very well  and is perhaps more thematically correct.

The necklace is based on a few large dark green glass beads that have been left over from earlier projects together with a glass bead mix of smaller green beads and some gold-colored metal beads and spacers between the larger beads. I tried to compose the necklace with the larger beads slightly spread out over the necklace and with a seemingly random mix of smaller glass beads and the metal beads and spacers in between them, and finally I selected one of the larger beads, a silver-foil heart, to use as a pendant.

Photography by Kristian.

This has become one of my favorite chain necklaces and I have used it several times already. Most of the materials that I used for this necklace have been lying around, waiting for me to use them for some time now, especially the large silver-foil pendant that was much larger than I had expected when I ordered it and the large black stone beads that I have been trying to figure out what to do with them since I got them.

At last I came up with this idea, and I am very happy that it turned out so well. I like the combination of large beads and thick metal links, and I think that these different materials go very well together. As I often do, I created the chain by using links from three different chains and also added the large flower shaped links since I wanted an even bigger and heavier chain to go with the large beads and the heavy pendant. This is a pretty big and perhaps a bit heavy necklace, but I love the shape and the colors and I hope to use it many more times.

Photography by Kristian.

For this necklace, I used two different sizes of red coral beads, small white seashell beads and some metal spacers combined with a smallish red silver-foil heart pendant. The theme is similar to an earlier necklace with coral and black lava stone, but I think that this necklace has a more sophisticated look. I especially like the star-shaped toggle clasp and the flower-shaped metal links that I framed the larger coral beads with.

Together with this necklace, I also made a matching bracelet without the flower metal links and I even tried to make matching earrings but since I was not satisfied with the result I only made the one earring. There are no pictures available of neither the bracelet nor the earring.

Photography by Kristian.

This is yet another variation of a chain necklace using a rough silver-colored chain, purple silver-foil beads, and faceted amethyst beads. The colors are very similar to this earlier necklace, but the composition and materials is more similar to another pair of earlier necklaces.

Photography by Kristian.

As I have mentioned earlier, chain necklaces are ever popular and I have made several variations of these kind of necklaces. This is my latest version, for which I have created the chain by using links from three different chains, one with large round links, one with large oval links, and one with smaller slightly twisted links.

For this necklace I used champagne-colored round silver-foil beads, faceted rock crystal nuggets, and a champagne-colored silver-foil heart pendant. It is a bit different from other chain necklaces that I have made because of the lighter color scheme, but I think that it should look pretty good together with dark clothes. I haven’t tried it yet, but I hope that I will get the chance soon.

Photography by Kristian.

What makes this necklace different from other chain necklaces I have made is the beaded ball pendant that I made from 30 cube beads. I wanted to make a chain necklace from the green silver-foil beads that I had lying around, but I had nothing that I could use as a pendant and since I had some small cube beads in the same color I decided to try out the beaded ball description I had found a bit earlier.

I think that the beaded ball turned out very well, and that it fits in nicely with the rest of the necklace but it was a bit tricky to get the shape as close to round as was possible.

As you can see in the first picture, this is a fairly short chain necklace which is why I also added a small toggle clasp in the shape of a padlock.

Photography by Kristian.

Here is another version of this purple seed bead necklace that I posted about a while ago, but in blue instead of purple. Of course, the pattern is not quite the same in this necklace, I used slightly smaller seed beads in this version and I selected the colors to match the hues of the blue resin pendant. The darkest of the seed beads are selected to match the color of the faceted glass beads and to contrast to the lighter blue shades of the pendant. A cute detail is the small apple blossom clasp that I picked because I think that it matches the flower pendant.

This is a close-up of the very cute blue flower pendant with the apple blossom clasp in the background. It is also possible to see the small faceted glass beads with dark blue filling that I used as spacers between the different sections of the seed bead patterns.

Photography by Kristian.