Fabric Bead Necklace & Earrings

Make Jewellery Magazine June 2010

After several years' faithful service, my sewing machine has been making an ominous noise, so I've taken it in to be serviced. So, time for some jewellery projects me thinks.

I subscribe to Make Jewellery magazine and, as with my other mags, I try to complete at least one project from each issue before the next one comes out. However, Make Jewellery is, to me anyway, quite a different kettle of fish to, say, Sew Hip. I see Make Jewellery as more inspiration and eye candy than a set of projects to be followed step by step. I'm always finding fab new beads to buy in there and it's a good showcase for handmade shops and new jewellery designers..

For the projects themselves, though, I never follow the instructions in detail, although I'm sure it's possible to do so. I tend to just look at the pictures (the photography is excellent) and check out the odd detail if I need to. I will then adapt the project to suit my tastes, my ability and the beads and findings I have handy or like to use.

So, this is my take on the Ditsy Chick project from the June 2010 issue. If you've seen it, you'll see I've simplified the design to a single strand necklace and ditched the curtain rings and ribbon. I used purple fabric beads rather than pink and also crocheted beads rather than felt ones.

For the supplies, I'm afraid the magazine committed the irritating sin of using a shop that doesn't have a proper online or mail order service. Although I probably could have got the beads by calling the recommended supplier, I opted to find some similar ones from Ebay. (This is not, however, as bad as the magazine using beads from a supplier that doesn't have any in stock and isn't sure if they can get any more, but that's another post).

I used some bead caps I already had for each bead and joined them together with eye pins as per the project. I used a closed jump ring and a lobster clasp to fasten the necklace. The earrings were completed with small translucent buttons and Swarovski crystal bicones (what did people do before we had them?). The whole thing took less than two hours and I think it looks really pretty.

Melx