Monika Wiklund

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.

This is a very simple variation of a peyote stitch necklace using beads of different sizes to create the spiral pattern along the necklace. Earlier, I have made a peyote stitch bracelet with equal sized beads, but the spiral pattern is more striking when using larger beads to edge the spiral like in this necklace.

I used small light purple seed beads for the parts between the spiral, slightly larger white seed beads on either side of the spiral, and for the spiral itself I used dark seed beads with a rainbow shine close to the clasp, then a small section of 3 mm magnetite beads, and in the center I used flat circular magnetite beads with rainbow finish to make the spiral pattern stand out even more.

This necklace is definitely my favorite among the seed bead torc necklaces that I have made so far, and I think that it it very cool in its simplicity.

I found this picture of me wearing the spiral torc necklace and thought it might give a better illustration of what it looks like. It fits very well  together with this black dress with a pattern of pink and purple flowers.

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.

This is yet another chain necklace, but compared with the last one this is much bigger and with a bit of a rough feeling to it. I used a pretty big gray silver-foil heart as a pendant, added some rough flat silver-foil beads in the same color together with a few diagonal hematite squares with small round purple amethyst beads inside, and joined the parts together with a simple and slightly rough chain.

The result was this rough and simple, yet somehow elegant necklace, and I really like the combination of the rough silver-foil beads together with the more delicate and elegant hematite and amethyst beads.

Photography by Kristian.

Like so many other things, this necklace started as an experiment because I wanted to try out the herring-bone stitch that I found a description of when I was looking around for new techniques. From the description, I figured that it would look pretty cool as a torc, so I started making a herring-bone stitch cord with a 6 bead circumference using three different colors, dark blue, light blue, and light green.

To make the pattern a bit more interesting, I moved the colors in a circular pattern around the cord as I worked, which created the spiral pattern that you can see in the picture. After a little while, it got a bit difficult to work with the empty cord so I started using a piece of suede string as a center. When the necklace was finished I left the center in, and used it for attaching the hook clasp.

I think that this necklace turned out fairly well for a first attempt. It is a bit on the short side for me, but my son loves it and has claimed it as his own.

Photography by Kristian.

As you might have noticed, I have made a lot of chain necklaces, partly because they are relatively easy to make and partly because chain necklaces are pretty popular so that I don’t have that many left anyway. This one is made from a thin chain with ovals and rings, some pretty nice metal cage links, mint-green silver-foil beads, and with a mint-green silver-foil heart as a pendant. Even though most of the necklaces are following the same pattern there is some variation in the colors, size and shape of the chains, and in the materials for most of the necklaces.

This is a close-up of the pendant and part of the chain of the necklace, it is a bit light, but I think that the color is pretty close to the real thing.

Photography by Kristian.

This is a rather nice and simple bracelet I made by sewing bugle beads together using the RAW stitch and then sewing round semi-precious stones across the diagonals. I used three different kinds of stone  for the diagonal beads, snowflake obsidian, mahogany obsidian, and brecciated jasper and when I added them to the diagonals, the squares of the RAW stitch was squeezed together across the diagonals to create a cute zig-zag pattern along the edges of the bracelet. The beads are sewn together with illusion cord since the edges of the bugle beads are a bit sharp and are likely to cut through a thread pretty quickly.

This picture shows the inside of the bracelet where it is easier to see how the bugle bead squares have been pressed together by the adding of the stone beads. I am very happy with the result  of this bracelet, and I have already made another version with three rows of stone beads where the middle beads are larger than the outer beads but I have no picture of it yet.

Photography by Kristian.

It has been a little while since my latest post, but I still have plenty of jewelry to post about. This one is definitely a favorite among my latest designs, a dark chain necklace with a hematite ankh pendant and a combination of metal flower links and diagonal hematite squares with red agate beads.

I created the chain by rebuilding a chain with double links since I think that it was a bit too much with doubled rings in each link. As you can see, the chain is dark gray and almost exactly the same color as the hematite which means that the red agate create a very nice contrast to the gray metal. The metal flower link right above the pendant is slightly larger than the rest, and since the ankh pendant is pretty thick and did not have any other holes I used a piece of suede string to fasten it to the flower link.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace is another version of this necklace, but with silver-colored pipes and red agate beads instead of copper pipes and sodalite beads. I think that the contrast between the orange red beads and the silver-colored metal pipes creates a very nice combination, even though the necklace in itself is very simple. In this case, I used wire as the base of the necklace since the edges of the pipes was a bit sharp and uneven which makes it impractical to use string or thread.

Photography by Kristian.

I figured that this glass pendant with a pattern of black, white and gold would fit pretty well together with these onyx beads, and since I had just tried out my Thing-a-ma-jig and made some metal links, I also wanted to use them for a necklace. After trying a few different combinations, I came up with this necklace and I think that it looks pretty good. The necklace is combined from a pretty thick chain, onyx coins, onyx lanterns, two different types of metal links, and a glass pendant with a smaller round onyx bead at the top.

I think that it is a bit tricky to make the metal links in the Thing-a-ma-jig so that they will hold the weight of the necklace and not bend out of shape too easily if the necklace gets caught in something, but I suppose that is mostly a matter of using thicker wire. These links turned out fairly ok, but it is definitely something I will have to keep practicing.

Photography by Kristian.