Inspirational Beading: Wings of Isis Collar

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Wings of Isis Collar

Although I started my Egyptian gods series late last year, making it my 2013 beading challenge has already had some great advantages. Giving myself an entire year to move through the pantheon allows lots of time for re-dos if something doesn’t come out quite befitting an ancient god, and I’m much more eager to jump in and try the first great idea that comes to mind.

The latest addition to the series is Isis, and as the most well known goddess of not just Egyptian but probably all ancient mythology, making her necklace was a tall order. Instead of wondering if I was up to the task, I got straight to work on choosing the shapes and colors that I would use to represent her with my favorite techniques.

The mother goddess’ magical wings seemed like the most obvious path to choose, not just because it would allow for some fun color use, but because the shape is so ideal for beadwork. I sketched out a few different ideas for netting patterns, picked out a few colors, and got to work on a collar.

I selected some jet lined blue magatamas for the edges of the collar, to help create the look of wing tips. Cobalt blue white hearts made up the bulk of my palette, along with raspberry, Rosaline, and pale jade. Once I got about a thread’s length into the beadwork, I started to have some doubts. Was there enough color? Would this pattern be magical enough for Isis? And I realized that I might run out of some colors before the design was complete.

Isis Bead Palette

The most obvious solution to those three problems was simple: add more beads. I got out all of my bead trays again, and started taking things out and shuffling them around, until a new idea began to form. I decided to divide up the collar into halves and thirds, blending the different color choices together, while also creating two separate “wings”.

I ended up adding three new shades of green and some green 8/o accents, orange topaz, and lime magatamas. Only a wider selection of bead choices could have made this project more satisfying. The pattern came out exactly as I had hoped, and the opposing fans of magatamas really help to create the winged look, and give the split colors a little more purpose.