Monika Wiklund

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.

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.

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.