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by: Dwyn Tomlinson
October's birthstone is Opal or Tourmaline. As an adult - I can appreciate this, as I realize what a huge range of colours this is. As a young girl - well I knew about those rather ghastly "mall opals" - whitish things with near invisible flecks of colour and what the heck was a tourmaline? And given that my birthday is in October - I felt vaguely ripped off at not getting one of the "good" birthstones.
Now, of course, I make and wear exactly whatever I want and no worries about the birthstone. But it was fun to tackle October as I am very fond of what I think of as the "Tourmaline" colour set.
The Crystallized Swarovski beads particularly lend themselves to this, as they have enough subtle colour variations to really give you lots of choices.
When I first sat down to pick these colours - I actually had a strand of graduated tourmaline gemstones in hand - so I could accurately find the colours I wanted. The necessary (IMHO) colours aren't available in every shape and size, which is why the main part of this necklace has to be in 4 mm rounds. Not even the 4 mm bicones has all the right colours.
I have deliberately varied the number of beads in a like colour from strand to strand, for a more casual look.
I used a lightweight and supple stringing material and worked the entire piece as just one thread. I started in the center - with about 2 metres (yards, arms-lengths) of wire, and threaded from the centre - using a needle on each end, threading a few beads on each side. Necklace length is 21 inches - to make it shorter, reduce the number of beads in the sides - where the 4 mm bicones are - dropping the number of bicones of each colour from 6 to 5 will make the overall lenght 2 inches shorter.
Alternate all of the 4 mm rounds with a 3 mm daisy spacer. Where 3 strands come down to one strand - I used a 3 mm bicone for two of the strands as the final bead to make the overall bulk smaller where the beads come together.
Start by stringing the center part (4 mm rounds), then the sides (bicones). (Step 1). (Scroll down for diagram). Add a crimp and a soldered CLOSED jumpring (even the best closed open jumpring will pull off). Go back through the bicones and come out with the thread at the first round. Do this for each side. Now you have a single strand with a long tail coming out the middle (Step 2). Thread one of those strands with more rounds, and when it is just a little longer than the initial middle section - go back through the last bicone, and knot and secure to the initial strand. (Step 3).
And finally, do the same on the other side, threading your third centre strand, and reattaching at the end of the centre section by threading up through the first bicone, and tying off onto the main wire. (Step 4)
I crimped the crimps at the end of the strands to prevent slipping. And finally, add your clasp - using open jumprings, to the closed jumprings you added initially.
This seems hard to explain, but minimizes the number of joins and connections in the stringing material.
Centre strand
4 mm rounds, alternating with 3 mm daisy spacers
from the centre
4 x Ind Sap
| Left | Right |
| 3 x Tur | 4 x Tur |
| 3 x Kh | 2 x Kh |
| 3 x Ol | 3 x Ol |
| 3 x Li | 3 x Li |
| 2 x LTo | 3 x LTo |
| 2 x InRd | 3 x InRd |
| 3 x Fu | 4 x Fu |
| 4 x Ga | 4 x Ga |
End with a daisy spacer, switch to bicones - do the same number on each side
6 of each colour for 21 inch necklace. 5 of each colour for a 19 inch. 4 of each colour for a 17 inch.
Thread back through the crimp and all the bicones. Snug up and secure the crimp.
Now you are threading from the left, to make another centre strand. Alternate the rounds with 3 mm daisy spacers.
From the left |
| 1 x 3 mm Ga bicone |
| 3 x Ga round |
| 3 x Fu |
| 3 x In Rd |
| 2 x LTo |
| 3 x Li |
| 3 x Ol |
| 4 x Kh |
| 3 x Tu |
| 4 x InSa |
| 3 x Tu |
| 3 x Kh |
| 3 x Ol |
| 2 x Li |
| 3 x LTo |
| 3 x InRd |
| 4 x Fu |
| 3 x Ga |
| 1 x 3 mm Ga bicone |
Thread into the first bicone of the side strand, and knot to secure.
Now thread the third strand from the right. (or, flip the necklace over and thread from the left again, if that is more comfortable for you.)
From the right |
| 1 x 3 mm Ga bicone |
| 3 x Ga round |
| 3 x Fu |
| 3 x In Rd |
| 3 x LTo |
| 2 x Li |
| 3 x Ol |
| 2 x Kh |
| 4 x Tu |
| 5 x InSa |
| 3 x Tu |
| 2 x Kh |
| 3 x Ol |
| 3 x Li |
| 2 x LTo |
| 3 x InRd |
| 4 x Fu |
| 4 x Ga |
| 1 x 3 mm Ga bicone |
And, again, thread into the first bicone of the side strand, and knot to secure.
The colour graduation between the Light Topaz and the Lime is very subtle, and the Olivine, Khaki are close too - and this subtly gives a very nice gradation, especially if you vary the number of beads in the colour slightly. I initially tried this with the same numbers in each colour and very methodical stepping up of sizes in the strands, and found I did not like the look as much.
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