Seed Bead and Lampwork Glass Necklace

Stupid Seed Beads!


This necklace is this month's tribute to Make Jewellery Magazine. In the August issue, I was very taken with Claire Nigeon's Shoots and Leaves project. The focus of the project in the mag was, I think, to make polymer clay leaves with a plunger cutter. You might notice that my neck is actually completely leaf-free. Polymer Clay is not wthin my current range of skills.


What I thought I could do is the necklace construction itself, which is seed beads double threaded on beading nylon with jump rings trapped between the two threads at strategic intervals. Ha! This was actually way harder than it looked and may well be a case of not actually having the right tools. Starting with good intentions, I bought some cream no.4 beading nylon and some beading needles. I have tons of Gutterman seed beads in my sewing stash and made a pretty mix of colours.


The snag was that the beading nylon wouldn't fit through the beading needle once let alone twice as required. So, I resorted to an ordinary embroidery needle. This was fine but not all the seed beads would fit over the eye of the needle. This was literally at random within the mix (some of all the colours were big enough but not all of any colour) so I spent over two hours test fitting endless seed beads until I eventually had about 60 cm with 7 closed sterling silver jump rings securely fixed and a lobster clasp.


The second part of the necklcae was much more enjoyable to make. Minus any leaves, I needed some beads to mount on my jump rings. I had recently purchased a set of handmade lampwork beads from SRA Janey Hill at Lemon Kitten Beads. The set is called Country Garden and each bead is different. I thought it was fate that there should be exactly seven of them.

I attached the beads to the jump rings with sterling silver eye pins and wrapped loops, making good use of my recent course on the subject. This was significantly quicker  and more rewarding than threading seed beads.


I really love the result - I think the seed beads make a perfect backdrop for Janey's gorgeous lampwork pieces. It makes the number of times I stabbed myself with the needle threading the seed beads worth it....


Melx