Does everyone know about my ongoing feud with Russia? Specifically, how goshdurned good they are at crafting and how I feel compelled to crush them with my talent? I believe I mentioned it here. And here. In keeping with this quixotic quest I received an email from my sister K. with pictures of bead-woven necklaces from a Russian website. Even though I couldn’t read anything I looked at the pictures and I really liked the wildflower look of the pieces.
Specifically this one.
While viewing this unabashed awesome talent I got all huffy and was like NOT THIS TIME, RUSSIA. IT’S MY TIME TO SHINE. So I decided to make a lariat for myself using only beads I already own with leaves and seeds at the bottom. I found a whole bunch of really pretty twisted metallic / rose gold-like bugle beads so I worked off of that and made this. I think it turned out pretty great.
If you decide to make a necklace like this, might I recommend what I did which is build all the leaf / seed elements separately and then assemble them as you make the dangly components. That way if you make something that isn’t working (which happened to me) you can simply unravel the cord and remove the leaves and seeds, then fix it and put them back on. No harm, no foul.
Fun fact: I did a Google image search to find out the name of the artist of those wildflower necklaces and it is… Margo Fields. A woman from New Mexico. Not a Russian. I got all riled up for nothing. I don’t regret creating the lariat, it is a piece I will wear and it was a nice stretch for me, but perhaps in the future I should do research before I get a bunch of cyrillic bees in my bonnet unnecessarily.