Today I did a project for myself. I've had a unique oval red-and-black-and-white banded agate pendant for about three years, but had been unable to come up with a suitable design for it. It reminds me of a clownfish, which was part of the difficulty. I'd bought carnelian rounds to go with it (I read somewhere that banded agate is usually carnelian and/or onyx, both members of the chalcedony family, as is agate).
I decided today to try just doing a simple round necklace using the carnelian rounds in the cross-weave pattern, but figured it probably wouldn't lay right unless it had a pendant. Then I remembered I had the banded agate pendant sitting in my bowl of collected polished stones and dug it out to use at last. I love the way it turned out, although where the necklace comes together over the pendant doesn't quite lay flat. I didn't have enough carnelian to make a longer necklace, and because of the pendant's size I didn't want it too low anyway. As things are, the V where the cross-weave comes together sits at the hollow of my throat. I used size 15 black-lined red seed beads between the rounds, and a single blackstone round as embellishment below the pendant.
Name: Clownfish choker
Price: $40 (reason: tons of carnelian, time, and effort; personal collection)
Length: 15 inches; pendant is 1.5 x 1 inch oval
This is probably the only primarily red necklace I've made I've ever been remotely happy with. The pendant is a really neat piece of banded red agate from Von's here in town, the rest of it carnelian, white rice pearls, red seed beads, and white pearl seed beeds. It sat around forever and I was almost ready to scrap it when a friend heard I made jewelry and asked if I'd done anything red. I sent her pictures of it, then showed it to her in person; she absolutely loved it and bought it from me.
Name: Banded Scarlet
Price: $15 (sold to Felice B.)
Length: 17"
Okay. I've decided to let you in on my more kooky side. I have been a big fan of Transformers since I was about three years old. The recent release of the movies (using one of my favorite characters' original voice from the original cartoon series), only rekindled that fandom. So when the first movie came out, I got to thinking how to subtly comment that I was a Transformers fan and came up with this necklace. Blue goldstone, carnelian, white rice pearls, and red, blue, and silver seed beads rounded out my choices, as I don't seem to make red-toned necklaces very well (and Optimus Prime is mostly red in the original series). My grandmother liked my necklace (I have a bracelet and earrings, too), that I made her a similar one (without the donut) for her birthday the following year. At least my camera caught the sparkle of the blue goldstone!
Name: Optimus Prime
Price: $20 (personal collection)
Length: 15.25"
