I had two ideas for some necklace designs, so yesterday, I decided to try to get them both made and post tutorials on my About.com Jewelry Making site for this weekend. I thought they were both pretty straight forward designs and decided to go with the easiest one first before working on the second.

Of course, you sometimes think a design is going to be easy, and then once you start in on it, you realize easy it relative. I eventually did manage to get one of the two designs made, and the tutorial for this Raku Bead & Hemp Necklace is up. But, what I thought was going to be a project I could whip out in a few hours, ended up a day long event with one problem after another, a day full of design dilemmas:

Problem 1, MIA Beads: I started to gather my beads, 5 raku lampwork beads made by DD Hess and 5 Bali-style silver beads from JSBeads.com. I set them in front of me and started arranging them. “Ring, ring”  I get up to answer the phone, see that it’s a salesman on caller ID, come back to my desk….hmmm…weren’t there 5 raku beads here? “Bang, bang” Under the desk I hear Skimpy, one of my cats, playing ping pong with my beads. I dive down and recover one, but the other is MIA. So, now I have 4 raku beads. Time to rethink the design.

Problem 2, Thick Hemp: Before I get too much further, I check to see that my hemp will go through my beads. I really wanted to use a few strands of hemp, but I realize quickly that’s not going to work. With one strand, the raku are no problem, but the silver ones, crap! I really want to use some of these beads in between the raku but they won’t fit. So, I try a different style, another different style, I cut the hemp on an angle, I wet it on the end, and finally, success!

Problem 3, Length Question: I started with about a yard of hemp. I wanted to make sure I had plenty to use and was thinking of making the necklace around 20 inches long. But, once I got the middle beads secured, I realized the hemp looked too thin for such a long necklace.  It just didn’t please me, so I had to figure out if I wanted to add more beads, maybe smaller ones, or did I want to make the necklace shorter? I held it up against myself while looking in the mirror and decided 16 inches, so that the beads rest against my collar bone, looked nice and would probably work with a lot of my summer t-shirts.

Problem 4, Clasp or Tie: Originally, I had planned to just tie the ends to secure the necklace around my neck, but as I got further into the process, I decided I needed something fancier, more finished though not necessary something that would take away from the rustic/earthy look I was going for. A toggle clasp came to mind, but I didn’t have any that were large enough for this necklace (which is pretty heavy due to the size and weight of these beads). I realized a button would be perfect, maybe a glass button, but again, I didn’t have one large enough, so I started digging through one of my bags of misc. buttons and discovered this metal one. I honestly have no idea where it came from, but it looked perfect. Another problem, solved, or almost….

Problem 5, Making the Toggle: So, I had this cool button, but again, the small diameter of the hemp made me reluctant to just attach the button on one end and make a loop on the other and call it finished, so I realized I needed to make the hemp loop thicker somehow. That morning I had started to clean up my office a little (just a little) and I had a stack of books I needed to put away. One of the books was Designing Jewelry with Glass Beads by Stephanie Sersich, and it had a bracelet on the cover with a fiber style toggle. Hey, maybe that would work! Well, no it wouldn’t work because I would have had to use a bunch of pieces of cord at the beginning to make the toggle part before stringing, but it did give me the idea for creating a way to wrap a piece of hemp around the loop and thus make it stronger.

Problem 6, Writing It Up: Of course, by now it is going on 7pm and time to feed my cats, give one an insulin shot, and the day is winding down. Though I did manage to get some laundry done, a few meals eaten, and other things around the house done while I worked on the necklace throughout the day, I realized that I had the necklace made now, but I still need to write it up. If I waited until the next day, how I managed to get this made may not be so fresh in my mind. The toggle, especially, was a major brain problem for me. Tomorrow, would I even remember how I did it? Probably, but just to be on the safe side, I spend the next hour attending my cats and writing instructions.

Okay, so I didn’t get both necklaces finished, but I did get one designed, constructed, and posted. Plus, I think it turned out pretty well. I was going for a hippy – chic look, and I think I accomplished that.

Now onto necklace number 2!