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Night at the Opera
by: Dwyn Tomlinson
At 41 inches - this is beyond opera length - technically it is a "Rope necklace" - but we'll go with calling this Night at the Opera for it's sheer audacity!
I've actually made this in more than one colourway, and I'm very pleased at how it looks each time!
This features soft, silky tassels, a large stone donut, matching faceted donuts, cleverly mounted to show them from their side, a rope of small beads, and lots of chain!
- Make a short strand of small drop beads with a tassel at each end. I used rizos for the drop beads, and strung them to be 1.5 inches of black, a mix of colours, and ended with 1.5 inches of black. I strung this on fireline, you need something flexible and drapey for this.
- Fold this tasseled strand in half through the centre of the stone donut. Wrap the ends of the strand back through the hole again, and attach the tassels to each other. (Jumpring or just stitch together with the thread you strung them on.)
- Take a short piece of chain, about 3 inches and, in theory, thread through the hole of the stone donut. In reality - this chain is thick and the strand of rizos was hogging all the space, so I had to open a jumpring and put one end of the chain on, poke it through the hole, and catch up the other end of the chain and close the jumpring. Still works - but you can see in my pink version below - I had enough room for 2 stands of decorative chain. Smaller stones on the strand, smaller chain.
- Take another short length of chain,
about 4 inches. Take a strand of softflex, about 24 inches, and double
it through the end link of the chain. Add a 4 mm bead to both strands,
then separate the strands and feed one end through one side of the
faceted donut bead, and the other end through the OTHER side. Bring the
two back together, and add a 4 mm bead. Repeat till you have 4 donuts.
Don't add the last 4 mm bead. Add a crimp instead, and then loop the two
strands of softflex through the end of a long piece of chain (about 28
inches in this case, you can go shorter though. Not too short - unless
you add a clasp.) Thread the two strands of softflex back through the
crimp, and crimp closed. Cover with a crimp cover.
You only need to be approximate with the spacing of the beads. After you are done they will shift a little and rearrange themselves to be evenly spaced. - Now - and don't forget this - thread the short piece of chain through the looped chain on the big stone donut, and thread the softflex and donuts the same way, and then attach to the OTHER end of the long chain, and crimp. Make sure you don't accidentally attach to the long chain without adding on the donut pendant first!
Components
Go to our components list for this project and to buy what you need!Need some help with some of the techniques? Check our tips page.
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