Swirls
A pattern of hazy swirls characterizes this 48 cm necklace of brown zebra jasper, and golden and brown tiger’s eye beads. For more info on the necklace, please click on Details, and if interested in my musings, please go to Story.
The identification of the beads start from the bead in the centre, moving upwards, with measurement for some of the bigger beads, with metal beads named last.
Length: 48 cm (19”)
Weight: 108 gms
16 mm golden tiger’s eye
14 mm brown zebra jasper
16 mm brown tiger’s eye, and a final pair of 10mm (before the clasp)
Brown tiger’s eye columns
14 mm red tiger’s eye
Gold-plated silver spacers
Gold filled crimp tubes
Gold-plated silver toggle clasp
I was very taken with the brown zebra jasper that Mr L showed me during a visit to his shop last year. I had not heard of zebra jasper before and had not seen this shade of brown in beads - the stones looked like coffee and cream swirling around! The string of zebra jasper went home with me, and I started to design a necklace with it not long after.
It would have to be a shades of brown necklace, and tiger’s eye beads, with its swirly patterning, seemed the obvious choice. Besides the brown tiger’s eye beads however, I needed a lighter shade to diffuse the over-concentration of darker brown, and the bigger size golden coloured tiger’s eye was compatible. I also needed a different shape other than just round beads and thankfully, I still had some brown tiger’s eye ‘columns’. I experimented with the addition of silver beads with whorls, but eventually decided against it, settling for just gold-plated silver spacers instead. It took me some time to finally settle the placement of the brown tiger’s eye columns, moving them up and down a number of times! I was finally happy with the interplay between the coffee brown zebra jasper, the golden tiger’s eye, and brown tiger’s eye, and a pair of brownish red tiger’s eye too!
No surprise that I am naming this necklace Swirls. This is a short necklace at 48 cm, and while you would conventionally wear it with various shades of browns, I think you could be adventurous with it, and try it with the brighter shades of green, cobalt blue, orange or fuchsia (I placed it against all four colours and liked the effect). Have fun with it!
