Saturday, February 25, 2012

Long Kazuri Necklace

I bought some black and white Kazuri beads (hand-painted ceramic beads from Kenya) at a bead show about 4 years ago and squirreled them away in my stash . . . and hoarded them, and hoarded them, and finally decided what to do with them!

The Kazuri beads have nice-sized holes, so I created a multistrand necklace with thousands of size 11 black seed beads, and a few 3 mm cube-shaped onyx beads. I hand-strung all the seed beads, 'cause that's the way I roll. This probably would have been the perfect project for one of those bead spinner thingies, but I don't have one, and it really didn't take too terribly long to get all these beads strung.

I used 5 different Kazuri beads - 4 have black and white patterns, and one is solid black. I like the symmetrical asymmetry (that's a thing, right?) The necklace is a delicious 44 inches long, and I've worn it long, but it can also be doubled up, like on the mannequin above, so it's very versatile, and goes with a lot of stuff.


I don't often string this many seed beads - I am a beadweaver at heart, sewing each little seed bead individually into intricate patterns, so I'll probably never invest in a Bead Spinner. Anyone out there have experience with one?

2 comments:

Maggie said...

I love how some beads take years to tell us how they want to be used. Great beads and fabulous necklace!

dreaminofbeads / SAS Jewelry Designs said...

Really great necklace. I have a been spinner but I have not used it yet....should I say that I have probably had it for over a year now!?! I really do want to try and see how it work, I can only imagine how long it took you to do this.
Sonya