People often imagine that designing handmade gemstone necklaces begins with choosing a beautiful gemstone bead, surrounding it with other beads and it’s then done. Occasionally, that can happen. More often it doesn’t. The process of designing handmade stone necklaces can be tortuous and unpredictable, though ultimately rewarding if/when you can say “Yes, this is it!”

For me, designing a necklace feels much more like directing a film. I start off with auditions for my cast – out comes beads that are perhaps in the same tonal palette, beads of different shapes and textures, bigger beads, smaller beads, and let’s not forget the small spacers, the 2.5 mm, the 3 mm etc. Which are the main ‘actors’ that will carry the plot, which are the ones supporting? How big a ‘role’ should I assign to the different protagonists?

In the case of Crystal Clear above (available) I wanted to use the grey-veined white howlite beads that I have in two shapes, grooved 20 mm rounds, and grooved triangular tablets. I also knew that I would pair it with the rock crystal, for a clean, sculptural feel. I design on a bead board, or more often, actually strung up on a beading wire, so I can try it on to see what it looks like on the body. The first few iterations however, felt rather flat, so the ‘script’ had to be re-written. Why not be bolder and try out an asymmetric design instead? And because I had collected rock crystal beads in different shapes, this became an exciting possibility. I soon got very absorbed moving rock crystal beads in different shapes around and then adding and taking away howlite tablets to get the right balance. With the howlite and rock crystal, it has to be silver spacers rather than gold-coloured ones and I was even more experimental with the silver spacers, pulling out my collection of different sterling silver spacers. I added one silver spacer, then another. Then another. By the end, there were six different rock crystal bead shapes and seven different silver forms. Should I have stopped much earlier? Yet somehow, the design felt coherent and lively, not chaotic.

The reasons the composition could sustain that richness is that there were strong unifying elements – the howlite was disciplined with only two principal forms. The rock crystal, being clear, tolerated variety much better than an opaque, highly patterned stone would. And finally, although different spacer forms were present, they were united by all being bright silver, and approximately the same scale. The ‘film’ was produced relatively smoothly – the main cast of howlite and rock crystal got along well and the supporting cast of the silver spacers also shone but did not steal the show. The script had to be rewritten from symmetric to asymmetric, and as usual, involved iterations, but was not unduly challenging.

Not all handmade gemstone necklaces follow that relatively smooth path. Voilà (available) proved particularly challenging! Over the years, I had collected various interesting agate beads in pale, neutral colours, in different shapes of slim ovals, pebbles, rectangular columns. When it came to designing a necklace with them, I had a clear idea that I would match them with some interesting eye agate. Alas, the main actors behaved like prima donnas, refused to be collaborative and try as I might to change the script around, to get them to dialogue, it was not to be. After a frustrating and fruitless day, I abandoned the project, but returned to it a few

days later, ejecting the eye agate from the cast, bringing in a different lot of agate. This time round, the different agate began to get friendly, and the design started to fall into place. Whereas I found myself adding more and more silver forms in Crystal Clear because it worked, VoiIà demanded the opposite - I decided that I needed to be disciplined and use one type of silver spacer throughout the necklace. It acted as a unifier, and a punctuation mark, giving the eye natural pauses as it moved along the necklace.

So, the film-making metaphor works for me, because the process of designing my handmade stone necklaces often feels like directing a film. I may start off with a ‘star’ that I have been wanting to work with, but have not found the right co-stars, as in the deep violet faceted amethyst rounds in Crystal Cascade (sold, but photos are still on our website). Or, I may have a script in mind, and the challenge is to find the right cast, as in Asymmetry (sold, photos on website) In the case of Crystal Cascade, when the pale lilac amethyst spools came along, I sensed immediately that the time was right, and the making of it went smoothly with few hitches. Likewise, the red jasper and the leopard skin jasper cubes were happily cooperative rather than combative, and it became a matter of deciding how many of each of the two types of cubes to use and finding the right - but different, metal spacers for each side, to ensure that the asymmetry felt ‘right’.

But the business of designing these one-off handmade stone necklaces is seldom a tidy, linear process. Even when you think you have figured out the plot, you may be surprised by unexpected developments. Recently, I have been working on a small capsule of smaller scale Manik necklaces. A necklace of small orange banded agate ovals, orange rutilated quartz, smaller faceted garnet discs and slant cut pink rhodonite tubes seemed fairly well-developed. And yet, I didn’t feel satisfied – the rhodonite had become too loud, and the garnet discs felt out of place. So, I had to cut down the role of the rhodonite, and a few iterations later, the garnets discs went out too, while some haematoid quartz, some smaller, lighter orange, agate, and some deeper red, faceted agate were brought in instead. It feels like a very different necklace now, but I am happy with it! Thus, I may start off with a clear idea, but along the way, the beads may insistently demand a re-think, requiring me to re-cast and re-design the necklace.

Not every necklace begins from scratch. Occasionally, I look at an existing design and realise it hasn’t met my expectations of what it should be. Rather than accepting it, I dismantle it and begin again. Earthbound (available) emerged from an earlier necklace that, on reflection, felt too loud and brash. Gilded Grove (available) by contrast, grew out of one that seemed too safe and predictable. Some of the original beads from both necklaces were kept, but they are now in different conversations with other beads, in quite different designs. Good design of handmade stone necklaces is not about always getting it right the first time. It is also about recognising when something can be better.

My experience of designing handmade gemstone necklaces has taught me that there are many creative pathways, that there is no single formula for success. Fortunately, there are also those thrilling occasions when everything falls unexpectedly into place. Sometimes two stones seem made for one another, as in Crystal Cascade. Sometimes a composition settles almost effortlessly, as in One Year On (available) and the necklace tells you that it has found its final form. Those moments are deeply satisfying, more so because they cannot be willed, and can only be the result of patience, persistence and judgement.

Finally, what about the naming of the necklaces, you might ask? Ah, I could write another article on that, and perhaps I shall! Quite often the naming of the necklace comes after the necklace has been completed, though somewhere along the process, I would have started thinking about it. I really enjoy this part of the process too, perhaps partly because it means a necklace has been successfully designed! And I take time to mull over how I want to name a necklace because it does shape perceptions and interpretations of the character of the necklace. On our website, besides being alphabetically arranged in the Products page, our necklaces are also slotted into four collections of Configurations, Hues, Materiality and States, and the names reflect their affiliation to one of these four broad themes. Sometimes though, I may be inspired by a word, a phrase to design a necklace around it, and so the name is a pre-given. This was the case with the necklace called Greyscale (not yet released in our shop). I took it as a challenge that I could design a ‘greyscale’ necklace that would be anything but boring. I did, and I love it.

It has been some three decades and more years since I first ventured into handmade gemstone necklaces. Not long ago, a friend showed me some necklaces that I had made for her many, many years ago. Seeing these handmade stone necklaces again was like meeting my younger creative self. It was interesting to see how my design language had evolved. These early necklaces relied on repeated sequences and some of them could sit in my current refined classics style family. At the same time, I could see that some of my design signatures were in place in these early pieces – the necklaces had clean lines, the tonal palette was harmonious, and there was no chaotic bead mixing. The designs showed intentionality. I could see the beginnings of tendencies that have since become more nuanced and focused. It was a touching and comforting moment.