Horizon Fringe Necklace

Have you ever fallen in love with a bead twice? It doesn’t happen very often, but once in awhile a bead that looks amazing on the strand or in the package can wow you even more when you use it in a design. Earlier this year, I took a chance on some interesting turquoise Czech beads, with an odd diamond wedge shape. The color was perfect for my designs, and the shape seemed intriguing - a bit of a challenger perhaps, but with lots of potential.

When I sat down to work out a design for the Egyptian horizon god Aker, I needed two accents to represent lion heads. Since my seed bead palette already included turquoise, I grabbed two of my new wedge beads and got to work. The idea was to make a V-shaped St. Petersburg chain with fringe embellishment, and place a pair of beads opposite each other, just above the center point.

After getting started on the base beadwork, and thinking things over a bit, I realized that these diamond beads would look awkward and clunky in my design, so I decided to leave them out and use loops of topaz instead - much more fitting for a lion god. It wasn’t until I started the final assembly that I realized a single turquoise bead would make the perfect focal. Not only was it just the right size, but the unique shape of the beads tucked right into the loops of seed beads.

The design worked out so well, that now I’m worried I’ll never find another way to use the turquoise wedges with the same satisfaction. I’m sure I’ll repeat this design again, with some different color choices, but a whole strand of beads could last a long time!

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