If At First You Don't Suceed - Try - Try - Try

Somethings go quickly,  other things take time.  This piece is taking me longer than most and it's not because it is so complicated or intricate but because I keep stopping and reevaluating what I want to do with it and how to do it.

Several weeks ago I braided the Kumihimo cord using silk threads in pale sage green, pretty lilac and just a touch of deep, amethyst purple.  Then it sat while I pondered what it would become.  I decided to only use about half of the finished cord, making it into a center section of a necklace.  The other half may end up becoming a bracelet but that's not decided yet.

Next I found a Rainbow Fluorite flower, it was pretty but a little bland, much like a piece of clear quartz with very pale bands of lavender and milky waves running through it.  To enhance it I applied alcohol ink in vivid "Wild Plum" to the backside of the pendant and then applied a sealer - then to be doubly sure the ink would not come off I applied a coat of epoxy resin to the flower's backside.  Now it really pops.

 Next step was deciding how I would attach the flower to my necklace and decided a beaded bail would be in order.  Believe or not the pearl embellish bail in photo above is my fourth attempt at making this bail.  The first bail I used beads in the same 3 colors used in the cord (even went out and bought the beads - tiny little  Delica  #11's ) but found the three colors together were too much, too busy along side of the striped fluorite flower.  So I beaded another in just two colors, sage and lavender and still it was wrong.  Third bail was done using only the pale sage yet still it was not quite right.   Finally, on the fourth bail, I used the darker amethyst beads with a rainbow finish and, like Goldilocks, found it was just right. 

Of course the bail would have to be embellished and what is prettier than natural mauve, freshwater pearls?  How about mauve pearls with just a hint of real amethyst beads tossed in just for a dash of spice?

The ends of my hand braided cord have been tightly wound with a matching thread,  Nymo - for those familiar.  ( For those unfamiliar, Nymo is a nylon beading thread that many seed beaders use and comes in many lovely colors).
I speared the cord ends with super long headpins and then capped them with Bali style, pewter cones.  However I began to worry that maybe that wasn't going to hold it all together so I mixed up some epoxy resin and attached the ends permanently to the inside of the cones.   Sounded like a good idea at the time but once the resin dried I noticed that, just slightly under the cones, I could see that the resin had cause the threads to darken.  It  wasn't all that noticable but I could see it and at times I'm OCD , so more time was spent on trying to decide upon a solution and finally I settled upon covering that part of the braided cord with beads . . . amethyst and lovely, dark garnet beads.

 

 

Now this is as far as I've gotten on this project and already it's taken approximately 4 weeks - most of which were spent in decision making. 

I do think when it is finished it is going to be a lovely piece.  Just hope it won't take me another 4 weeks to decided upon how to make the sides of this necklace.