Pearl Torsade

I spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of last week creating this gorgeous pearl torsade - a multistrand necklace consisting of 10 strands of differently colored and shaped freshwater pearls, with a beautiful shell pink carved mother-of-pearl flower focal bead (which hides the sterling silver tube clasp.)

The mother-of-pearl focal piece is center-drilled, which created some unique design problems: how to attach it to the necklace without it hanging upside down like a dinner plate! I finally figured out (I hoped!) a way to rig one half of the 5-strand tube clasp to a wrapped loop I ran through the flower (with an eye-popping white pearl and vintage rose Swarovski crystal on the front of the flower), and crossed my fingers, and started stringing pearls.

With the 5 strand tube clasp, I planned on stringing 10 different pearl strands, figuring that when twisted they would give the perfect amount of volume to the necklace. I knew a fair amount of length would be lost to the twisting process, so I planned to make each individual strand almost 19 inches long, hoping for a finished length of around 17 inches. I knew there was little I could do to test my plan until I bit the bullet and just strung each strand and attached it, so I crossed my fingers and dug in.

Each strand of pearls was only 15 to 16 inches long, so it actually took 2 strands of each pearl type to get the length I needed.

I chose some absolutely delicious pearls to compliment the carved flower focal: all freshwater pearls, in whites, champagne, and various pinks and mauves.

I love the finished look! When fully twisted, it is between 16.5 and 17 inches long.

 And for a different look, it can also be worn untwisted, falling to around 19 inches in length:

Each strand of pearls is connected independently to the sterling silver tube clasp, which, when closed, is cleverly hidden by the focal flower:

And it's available in my Etsy shop!