Lime Surprise

As a beader, I've always shied away from fringing.  Don't know why - it's just one of those things that I've been fearful of.   In the last few months, I've got over my fear of it.
Another thing I've never done, is make individual bead embroidery elements and link them together... until now!  
Before Christmas, I bought some gorgeous vintage cabochons from a shop called Rosebudlia; she sells a beautiful selection of cabs and other goodies.  I decided to put these cabs to use for another beading first - joining embroidery elements.

I decided that five elements would look best, and surprisingly, I had the right colours in my stash, so this was quite a stash-buster too!

This is what the finished necklace looked like, and here is me wearing it - so you can see how it sits.

It's just my opinion, but when making a piece like this, involving no metal components in the design, the best way to finish it off is to make a beaded clasp.  I love beaded toggle clasps - and the circular motifs in this lend themselves to a toggle clasp.  

 This shows a close-up of the beautiful cabs I used - they reminded me of ammonites, and the little bits of glitter in them give them a bit of sparkle.

One other slightly odd thing about this piece is that I actually used bugles in it.  Usually I don't use them as they are often sharp at the ends and can cause threads to fray and break, but these matte ones are very nice, and they work well in fringing.

I'd love to hear what you think about this latest piece of beading... I'm very excited about it, and I'm looking forward to using this technique more.