Weathered Coastal Necklace

by Ali on 10/13/11

Additional Images:

Project details:

The inspiration for this piece came from childhood memories of the New England coastline - fishing nets, rocks shores, grasses, the sunlight on the Atlantic, seashells, weathered buildings and boats. Gaea's new bundles and the natural hemp made it all come together.

↓ Step-by-step

↓ Buy the supplies

Supplies you’ll need:

1 Gaea bundle
1 7' length of hemp (folded in half)
1 5-6' length of hemp (folded in half, to be used as working strands for half square knot)
1 6" length of wire
1 square 2 hole bead
1 button for closure
1/2 tube of magatamas or other seed beads

Step-by-Step Instructions:

Step 1

Begin by doubling your 7' length of hemp and stringing on the button. Secure with an overhand loop knot. To begin stringing and placing beads, you will first need to figure out where the square link you will be creating is going to go - I wanted it to lie at my collarbone. I placed the button at the back of my neck and draped the 2 strands around the front of my neck, one slightly longer than the other, bringing them to my collarbone. Now that you have the lengths figured out, create the knots and string the beads. Take the square 2 hole bead and turn it into a 2 hole link using the 2 4" lengths of wire. Then weave the hemp through both loops on the bottom from opposing sides. Pull the hemp up the sides of the square and through the 2 loops at the top just as before. Once the hemp has been pulled through the top loops, bring the 2 strands together and wrap them with 6" of copper wire.

Step 2

To create the half square knot, you'll need to add in a length of hemp to be doubled over and used as the core strands. Tie the new length of hemp to the current 2 strands and dab with glue or epoxy before beginning your knotting

Step 3

Cut 6' of thread and pull through the needle, doubling up and knotting at the tails. Pull the needle and thread through the hemp knot where you would like to begin, repeating a few times. Then begin threading through the hemp adding in seed beads as you like. When you come up to a knot in the hemp or a knot then a bead, push the needle through the knots and bead and continue.

Step 4

To create the closure use a button at the beginning and tie an overhand loop knot at the end making sure to use an decent amount of glue or epoxy to secure the knot.