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.

At first I was working mainly with seed beads and other small beads on wire. This is one of my early designs.

It is based on seed beads with small glass beads and natural crystal chips, and with a seashell flower as a pendant. The dark seed beads are all of the same metallic grey color, but the light ones are mixed shades of grey, white and silver lined crystal. The small dark glass beads are black pyramids with AB finish, and the larger beads are rectangular glass beads with metallic grey finish. The clasp is a small toggle clasp with details.

Edited, updated with a slightly better picture.