Melian's
Necklace (Embellished Floral Choker)
 
This special little necklace is made up of a simple chain of
right-angle weave and lot and lots of tiny beaded flowers. The
techniques you will learn in making this choker can also be used
to embellish amulet bags and straps, bracelets, earrings, hair
ornaments, anything you can think of! The art of embellishment
is tailor made to let your creativity shine through. I will show
you how to make several different flowers and it will be up to
you to decide placement and color.
What You'll Need:
1 hank transparent medium green seed beads
lobster claw clasp
jump ring
a mixture of brightly colored sparkly seed beads, ponies, Czech
crystals, (whatever you've got hiding in your magic bag! :-)
Begin by making a chain of right-angle weave long enough to
fit your neck. Use doubled thread for strength. All beads used
in this section are green seed beads. Pick up your clasp and
three seed beads. Tie them in a circle. Go around the circle
several times to strengthen it come out through the bead that
is at a right-angle to your clasp. Pick up 3 more beads and go
through the back of the bead your thread is coming out of and
around through two more so that your thread is coming out of
the right-most bead. Repeat until your chain is long enough to
fit around your neck comfortably. Pick up one bead, your jump
ring and another bead. Go through the back of the bead your thread
is coming out of to form a circle. Go around the circle several
times to add strength and weave your way back into the piece
to secure.
To give myself some room to work with, I added a partial second
row of 20 units in the center of my chain.
I chose not to embellish the entire chain. I placed three small
groups of one or two flowers on either side of the central double
rowed portion and concentrated on completely covering only the
doubled section. Most of the variation is in the colors and sizes
of the bead used rather than the techniques used to create the
flowers. If you come up with any additional flower designs I'd
love to hear about them!
The flowers are pretty simple to make, the trick is keeping
the beads snug against the chain as you work. This will take
practice. Hold the beads against the chain as you work and adjust
them as needed to keep them tight. If you're not careful you'll
end up with a big ol' piece of thread between your flower and
the chain.
The first flower looks a bit like a daisy but it's more realistic
because the petals are independent of each other. Pick up one
green seed bead and one of the color you wish to use for your
petals, I used red. Pass your needle up through the green seed
bead. Pick up another red bead and go up through the green bead
again. Do this six times all together.
To add a center, pick up a bead of a contrasting color (yellow
in this case) and go back down through the center of the green
bead.
To add a leaf, choose a bead near your flower to come out of.
Pick up two dark green seed beads. Go up through the bottom of
the first one and down through the top of the second one. Go
through the other side of the bead you originally left and up
through the first added bead again. Pick up one more bead and
go down through the second bead and the chain bead again.
I like to think this next flower looks like a calla lily. You
need to know brick stitch to make these. Pick up one green bead
and one white bead. From the white bead add three more to create
a brick stitch base row of four. Decrease normally adding a row
of three, one of 2 and one of one. Weave back to the base and
down through one end. Go up through the bead at the other end
of the base then back down through the first end.
Go down through the green stem bead and through the other side
of the chain bead you originally left. Then back up through the
base and up to the top of the flower. Go through the bead at
the tip of the flower and pick up another white bead. Go back
down through the bead you left and pick up three yellow beads.
Go down through the hole at the base of the flower that was created
when you connected the two ends of the base and through the green
stem bead. Re-enter the chain. The flower is likely to stick
out strangely, if this happens, weave your way through the chain
to a point at the back of the lily and sew it down.
This next flower is also made with the brick stitch. Pick up
one or two green beads for a stem and one petal (purple) bead.
From the purple bead create a brick stitch base row of three.
Connect the ends to form a triangle.
For the second row, increase two, first by adding two at once
in the first stitch, two separately in the second stitch, and
one in the last. Connect the last bead in the row with the first.
Add a center by coming up through the hole in the center, picking
up a bead, and going back down through the hole again.
Fill in the spaces between the more complex flowers with these
simple ones.
Just use seed beads for these.
Add more flowers branching of from the first stem.
Crystals and other larger beads work well in this formation.
All text and graphics by Emily Hackbarth © 1997
This pattern originally found at www.beadwork.about.com
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