Monika Wiklund

This jewelry is also a result of the preparations for going to Medeltidsveckan in Visby this summer. As you might already have guessed, it is inspired by the strings of beads that was commonly worn together with viking style dresses and this jewelry is made of bronze colored metal details, mookaite and jaspis beads, and faceted glass beads.

I never used it myself since the color does not match either of the dresses I made, but I think that it looks pretty nice and I hope that I will manage to find a use for it some time int he future.

Photography by Kristian.

Well, this is an example of what happens when I don’t have anything to do on Christmas eve and I get the idea that I want to make a Christmas themed necklace…

When I started digging through my stores of beads I found this combination of red, green and crystal-colored faceted glass beads, and after a while I also found a pattern in my  bead jewelry book. The name of the book is Beading Beautiful Costume Jewelry – Patterns for Every Festive Occasion, and the name of the pattern is Victorian Choker, but of course I did not follow the pattern exactly but adapted it for my own purposes and the available materials.

The faceted glass beads was combined with red, silver-lined crystal and frosted crystal seed beads, and you can see the result in the pictures above. I think that the necklace turned out fairly well and that it is pretty cool even though I am not sure if I will ever be able to use it myself.

Photography by Kristian.

This necklace was made as a part of the clothing that we prepared for going to “Medeltidsveckan” in Visby this summer. I already had these large red agate beads, and I thought that they would match my red over-dress if I could come up with a nice combination. Since black and red always go well together I dug through my stores and managed to come up with this combination of red and black agate beads together with some black pony beads, black clay beads, and black glass beads that I used to fill out the necklace to a suitable length.

The picture below is not very good since it is taken with a mobile phone, but it shows me in Visby wearing the necklace together with the clothing that I made for “Medeltidsveckan”.

Photography by Kristian.

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.

When I made this necklace, I was trying to make something to go with some medieval/viking style clothing that I am working on, and I selected these large glass beads and metal beads together with my sister who knows more about the style than I do. I know that these beads are probably not historically correct, but that is not very important to me since I only wanted to create something that emulates the medieval style rather than something that is completely correct.

The large metal rose pendant is very cute and I think that it is great in combination with the other beads in the necklace and even though I made this necklace with medieval style clothing in mind, I think that it also very easy to match with modern clothing and it has become one of my favorite necklaces.

Photography by Kristian.

Here is a very simple but at the same time cute and stylish necklace and bracelet that I made a couple of months ago. When  I made this, I had just made several seed bead necklaces with different types stitches and wanted to make something that was a bit simpler so I went for this single strand glass bead necklace.

I used a combination of black and purple faceted glass beads together with metal spacers and some smaller purple seed beads, and I think that the colors fit very well together with each other.  Perhaps the necklace should have been slightly longer, but I have used it a couple of times anyway and I think that it is a very nice necklace.

Photography by Kristian.

I came up with the idea for this necklace because I had bought a string of seashell spikes and wanted to find something to combine them with. When I started looking through my fresh-water pearls I realized that I had some nuggets and blister pearls of varying sizes that matched the color of the seashell spikes, and since I wanted to achieve a bit of volume for the necklace between the spikes I decided to use three threads and weave them between the beads.

The spikes are a bit unruly and sometimes wants to point in their own directions, but once you have managed to get them under control I think that it creates a very nice effect with the uneven beads interspersed with seashell spikes. At first I was a bit worried that I would not like the end result, but once I had completed the necklace and tried it on I found that I am very happy with the result and have already started to use it.

Photography by Kristian.

Even though this necklace and bracelet are similar to each other they are not part of a set but I decided to fit both in the same post anyway. Both the necklace and the bracelet are very simple with a mix of hematite beads and faceted glass beads but as you can see, the color of the glass beads are not the same.

For the necklace I used light yellow faceted glass beads, and I also varied the number of hematite beads between each glass bead to make it a bit more interesting. It does not show very well in this picture, but the toggle clasp is also hematite colored and in the shape of a small heart. Perhaps the necklace could have been slightly larger, but I it should fit very well for a smaller person or a child.

I suppose that the bracelet is the beta version of the necklace since I made it first to see what the combination of hematite beads and faceted glass beads would look like. I think that it turned out very well and even though I changed the pattern for the necklace, I think that both the necklace and the bracelet are simple yet elegant.

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.