Ribbon Royalty
Necklace
Designed by Kristin Burgess
A New and innovative design! Learn how to effectively capture lucite tube beads in copper tubular wire mesh for a unique design. Layers of ribbon mixed with strung lucite beads softens the look without adding weight. Your beady friends are sure to swoon over this Beadin' Path original! This spring rings in royal tones including muted oranges, olive greens, and bright blues. Mixing metals is still in high demand with designers as sterling prices continuing to climb. Copper and silver make a great match with the color tones of this weeks focus.
This project is great for even the very beginner beader! Stringing and crimping are involved with this project. The necklace has a total of four strands. One strand is beaded, one strand is on the mesh, and the last two strands are ribbon. One strand of each of the beads in the materials list are needed (except the tubes where two strands are needed). You will have bead leftovers.
The final length of the necklace is 20&1/2" long. Each of the strands are slightly different lengths so that each of the strands lay a bit apart from the next rather than on top of each other.
Step 1: Prepare a clutter-free workspace to lay out piles of your beads. Precut 2 feet of thin or .014 softflex wire. Using the standard crimper tool attach the pre-cut softflex to one of the eye pins. This strand will be the longest strand on the necklace. With softflex attached thread on this series of beads...4 seed beads, 1 blue lucite, 6 seed, 1 green lucite, 6 seed, 1 orange lucite, 6 seed, 1 blue lucite, 6 seed, 1 green lucite, 6 seed, and repeat pattern until desired length. End with 4 seed beads in a row just as you started. Crimp this strand off to the other eye pin. We will later (after all strands attached) draw these eye pins up and into the Bali Cones and attach the clasp.
Step 2: Using the crimper tool and 1 of the 2x2 crimps attach one end of the wire mesh to the eye pin.
Feed on 14 of the green lucite tubes placing a crimp cover in between each bead. This cover
keeps the lucite tubes in place and adds a nice metal contrast (silver over copper). Attach the finished strand to the opposite eye pin using the crimps. Now to add some ribbon! I hvae chosen two different ribbons, including a gold and colbalt blue style. We have many other colors available if you would like a thicker looking piece or want to recreate the necklace in a different color palatte. Double knot each ribbon to each eye pin. Each ribbon should measure about 21-22 inches. Play around with length before attaching the far side to the other eyepin. Be sure to literally double knot the ribbon onto the eye pin. All of this will be hidden in the next step of drawing the eye pin up and into the cone.
Step 4:
The eye pin on one side draw up into one of the cones. With the cone
pushed down hiding the crimping and attachments of one strand. This
bead palatte was chosen by the owner Heather. A similar list of
materials was used in the Tapestry piece featured last week in the
tutorials. Check out how different the two samples came out using
almost the same materials. It was a super fun exercise with very
different results!
Step 3:Turn your leftovers into earrings!
Try stacking this pattern on a headpin for an instant matching pair....1 8mm, 1 spacer, 3 crystals. The 24 gauge headpins are perfect for this and a simple french earwire in the gold fill works great! Happy St. Patty's Day fellow beaders!
