Freeform Netted Necklace

I finished my freeform netted necklace late yesterday afternoon, and it is now available in my Etsy shop.

freeform netted necklace in citrine and bronze hues

detail - freeform netting

freeform necklace toggle closure

Wanna know a secret?

The necklace pictured above is NOT the WIP in all the previous pics on this blog - for example - this pic:

freeform netting WIP (iteration 1)

If you look really closely, you can spot the differences - here is a cheat sheet, pointing out a few of them:

• the ends of the WIP are wider than the finished necklace ends you see in the 3rd pic above
• the WIP contains a lot more large pieces of citrine (big nuggets) than the finished piece
• the WIP contains faceted hessonite garnet, in a burnt orange color

Here's what happened:

At about the time of my March 14 update post, the ends of WIP had reached the width I was shooting for, so I stitched up the toggle bar you see in the finish piece, and attached it AND the Swarovski Cosmic Ring to the ends, so that I could better gauge the finished length of the necklace.

Then I moved in about 5 inches from each end, and started adding more width and chunkiness/fullness to the center of the necklace, in a graduated fashion - in my mind, I saw a sort of a V-shaped overall silhouette to the necklace, with it being widest at the center front, and coming to sort of a "V" when worn. So I moved back and forth across the center with my stitching, while moving further away from the ends with each pass, so that the necklace width kept growing symmetrically in the front.

I was about 30 minutes away from being finished on March 26, which I mentioned at the bottom of this post. The necklace was about 3 inches wide in the very center, and almost had the "V" I was shooting for. Just a couple of more stitches to add. I was so excited!

And for some reason, I picked the necklace up to survey my results - I think I was looking to make sure my last few stitches got exactly in the center. But something bad happened. Very bad.

I call it "turtling", but simply because I refuse to call it by what it really reminds me of.

You know how when a cockroach dies, it always seems to die on its back?

Well, this freeform necklace I had been stitching for weeks "cockroached" on me when I held it up: the thick, wide, chunky center section turned face down, revealing its un-embellished backside - and I imagined it would look like nothing so much as a sparkly feedbag when worn, lying there underneath the chin, waiting to catch crumbs:

Sorry - In my despair, I didn't get pics of my cockroaching necklace.

I tried several things to stabilize the center, but the necklace now had a life of its own, and wouldn't behave at all. It was too heavy, chunky, and wide, and it just lay there, like a hammock. So after about an hour of fretting, I grabbed some sharp scissors, laid the necklace flat on my bead mat, and cut my way right up the center of it, severing all the strands right up the middle. Then, one at a time, I picked up a severed half, and "milked" all the beads off the severed Fireline and into a tupperware container. And then I started sorting them. And then I started stitching all over again.

So the new necklace's silhouette does not "v" in the center, and you can bet I checked how it was lying frequently while I was stitching!

Tuesday Tangle: Mosaic Ammonites

"Mosaic Ammonites"

This zentangle was inspired by "Not Atoll," a mosaic by Sonia King. I love her mosaics, and this particular one had elements I thought would translate well to zentangling. (Her website was down at the time of this writing, so here is an alternate link to "Not Atoll").

"Not Atoll", a mosaic by Sonia King

Unfortunately, the pic of my Zentangle doesn't show the effect I achieved by using Sargent Art Metallic Markers for the blue and silver - they gave a wonderful metallic shine to the piece!

Here's a little recap of my weekend full of "Possibilities:"

Naturally, beading won out. No surprise there. I had taken home a pattern from an old, old Beadwork Magazine - I had torn the page out of the magazine way back when it came out, and the page doesn't even have the date on it. Sorry!

So this is how I spent Sunday afternoon: The pattern is called "Beaded Pillow Beads" - and basically calls for stitching up 2 peyote/herringbone triangles, and then stitching them together to make a puffy beaded bead.

This is the same pattern I played with weekend before last, but I had chosen galvanized beads, and the colors were coming off on my fingers (leaving no color on the beads!) - so I had chosen some non-galvanized beads this time.

Here is my bead:

The pattern called for making the triangles have 13 rounds; I stopped at 11 (it has to be an odd number of rounds, in order for the triangles to stitch together properly). I'm glad I stopped at 11, and didn't waste any time making these any bigger, because I'm not real thrilled with the result.

It's cute, and a clever idea, but if you look at the pics, you can pretty quickly see that these "beads" don't have any holes for stringing.

My plan had been to make 5 of them: 1 larger than this one, 2 this size, and 2 smaller, and then string them as the centerpiece of a beadwoven rope. But I don't want to mess with trying to string beads with no holes - I know it can be done, I just don't choose to. Plus, the triangles are really tricky to sew together; if you look at the last pic (click to enlarge), you can see my thread showing at the lower left, where the corner of the bottom triangle (the dark blue beads) meets the middle of the side of the top triangle - I should have pulled harder and reinforced this stitch, but I didn't see it until this macro shot called it to my attention!.

So I have a little, lone, novelty peyote puffy bead.

But wait .... there's more!

I naturally spent several hours Sunday and Monday morning on Pinterest (which was on my list of possibilities). Check!

Sunday afternoon I made the bead. Check!

Monday afternoon (hold on to your hats...) I vacuumed and mopped my whole downstairs. That's a big deal for me. I wanted to do the upstairs, but once I had finished the downstairs, I was over it.

Clean house - partial Check!

Then I spent several hours finishing my Zentangle. Check!

So I was surprisingly productive! I even squeezed in a little reading. Yay!

Now, back to work on my freeform netting, which is almost finished - double yay!

Freeform Netting Necklace Update

This is how my freeform netting necklace (WIP!) looks this morning (it's my first attempt at freeform netting; I started it a couple of weeks ago):

freeform netting WIP

freeform netting detail

The embellishment beads I'm adding are citrine (in about 7 different sizes, shapes, and colors - look at those gorgeous faceted citrine rounds in the pic above!), hessonite, and freshwater pearls.

The necklace is in the "ugly duckling" stage right  now, where I'm not loving it too much. I still love the colors, but the stitching just isn't there yet. But I know if I keep working with it, it will turn out fine! It's funny how freeform pieces almost always go through these "ugly duckling" phases!

I haven't been able to work on it as much as I'd like, so this project is stretching out, time-wise. I have to regroup and gather my thoughts on this one every time I sit down to work on it, because it's been so long since the last time I worked on it! I hate when my beading gets interrupted!

I somehow got the piece twisted yesterday as I was stitching the last row; I ended the row at the stop bead, instead of on the opposite side. Oops. I looked to see if it made a difference, and I couldn't really tell, due to the wandering freeform stitching I had been doing in the middle section (the embellished section). This wandering stitching was what let me lose my place to begin with, and it's what makes me love the look of freeform, but since this happened at the end of the day, and I was tired, I need to take a fresh look at it this morning. I'll either half to take out half a row (no big deal with netting) or I'll just pick up where I put it down last night, and keep stitching.

I need to make the side pieces a little wider, so they are more proportional to the clasp I plan to stitch for this piece. Then I'll embellish the sides, and continue working with the front.

When I finish this necklace, instead of putting all the beads away, I'm going to make a freeform bracelet to go with it (hopefully, accompanied by one of my beady bloggy friends!). I am really crazy about these neutral colors!