Tigers Eye and Gold - bead weaving that looks like fine jewelry

I love the mystery of getting "assortments" from beading places. Sometimes I get the dreaded ugly beads, which I quietly shuffle to the back of my boxes and sometimes I get something a little unique that I know I will use SOMEHOW -  I received a square cut cabochon of tigers eye that I knew would fall into the latter category.

To get myself thinking on patterns for the Red Woman's (Lady Melisandre) necklace I am planning for a giveaway to coincide with the start of season 2 of Game of Thrones I decided it was time to tackle the idea of netting the neck band.

I started by bezel setting the Tigers Eye in peyote stitch - it is very close in size to the CZ ruby I picked out as the center stone for the Red Woman's necklace.

Once I was done with the bezel setting it was time to get started on the band - I have worked netting before - but I wanted a specific look to the netting to really accent the color in the stones. The gold seed beads are 11/0 and the brown here are 15/0.


For the band I was not sure if I wanted to use these beads or pick up some other motif. I worked this small piece of netting from left to right and you can see me altering the netting until I had exactly the look I wanted for the bracelet band.

At first I thought the pure gold was the way to go - after all the necklace I am planning will be opulent in the extreme and very golden. I tried interspersing hex cut beads to kick up the sparkle. I felt this gave the netting and awkward look and did not make a nice shape. Next I tried all gold. with some of the brown at the neds of the netting.

This was ok - but it did not have what I really was looking for, finally I tried the brown beads as both the end points of the net - in a picot and as the joining beads in the netting. This was the look I wanted - intricate - yet lush and opulent. Here is one half of the band worked - not yet connected.

Now that I knew I had what I wanted - I needed only to finish the band of the bracelet. which I did - I will say that I feel the joining on one side seems a bit awkward -


I do not know if this was the beads or simply how it ended up joined - or how the beads are seated. When it is worn or seen even I do not see it - but I see it in the photo a bit.

Up in the corner of this photo you can see the fluorite coin shaped bead that became the simple clasp - I finished it with a small picot of the brown beads.




It picks up all the colors in the bracelet and looks fabulous. Below is a beautiful photo of the final piece -

Now onto the Red Woman's necklace - or Lady Melisandre's necklace!