Some might recall my serendipitous discovery that brownish purple glass coordinated well with a set of guacamole-green cloisonne beads that Wayne found and I purchased from him.
Going through the boxes of Chinese glass that I'd purchased from Duangporn and Steve Dunning over 20 years ago, found some strands of giant 15mm beads in an unprepossessing brownish purple color, a sort of cross between smoky quartz and amethyst. When manganese purple goes bad...
But the addition of some magenta and bronze Czech glass beads brightened the situation up, as well as solving a problem of dealing with hole sizes ranging from 1 to 4mm. I liked the way the magenta tulip beads plugged the holes in the Chinese glass, and provided flexibility pivot points when combined with the 4mm bronze lustered druks.
The cloisonne cylinder demanded to be strung vertically, as horizontally its balance is such that the nifty little dragon was always face down and unseen. I thought about using a silk tassel that has colors coordinating with the beads, but it was a bit too long and seemed likely to end up in the luncheon soup when worn. Plus, tassels get ratty pretty quickly, alas. Hence the magenta leaf (which is a brighter rose color than my camera caught in our dim overcast northern morning light).
So that's how I had fun yesterday - necklace engineering.
