I felt like making something simple last night while watching TV and knew I had some waxed cotton cord and crystals from a charity shop buy some time ago so I made this,
The knots are called square knots and you can find many tutorials on YouTube if you Google "square knots". Here's a close up of the knots,
A few years ago , I did a Design and Technology (Silversmithing) GCSE at the local Sixth Form College. It was great fun being among the 17-18 years olds with only a couple of mature students there. The work was all practical and the final exam was practical too split over a few days for a few hours each time. I'd decided to make a butterfly as my final piece and its been sitting in a drawer ever since. I finally decided to tumble it clean being worried that the antenna would somehow fail but the larger of the two pairs of wings came apart instead.
Silver glasses are those which have silver included in the manufacturing process. Hence they come out more costly that the "ordinary" glasses. Double Helix glass company in America makes a well known range and their base is here Double Helix A silver glass ring top, Psyche glass on the outside and one of the TAG (Trautman Art Glass in Germany) glasses in the centre. Sorry I can't remember the TAG name but the rod is a transparent blue.
The beading forum I belong to, Frit Happens has a few members who are sourcing rings, either stainless streel or silver with a small screw fitting attached, They also sell the nuts that fit onto the screws. It's possible to make a bead on top of the screw so that the bead fits onto the ring. It's possible to change the ring tops easily to suit your mood or the outfit being worn that day. This is my latest one,
These are from the book "Celtic Knots for Beaded Jewellery" by Suzan Millodot. They are made with 1.5mm leather cord and use sterling silver crimp necklets from Palmers Metals to finish off the cord. The wires are 1mm silver wire as I prefer this for my earings.
The small beads are quick and cheap ones made from green wine bottle.
I've been putting all my ends of stringer, murrini and large chips of 104 COE glass into a small jar and it finally became full so I decided to have a little play with putting it all into a small terracotta plant pot about 2 inches high and doing a pot melt. I knew with so many different colours that the resulting melt would probably turn out greyish but this 64mm almost circle is the result,
A week or so ago, I bought a focal bead from Amanda Manda's site while attending a glassy get together at Di East's Studio 19 at Enderby in Leicestershire, Studio 19
I wanted to try a slightly different form of knotting to form the necklace so got the instructions from Suzen Millodot's book "Ornamental Knots for Beaded Jewellery" and this is the result.