Ten Stones
As its name indicates, this 62 cm long striking necklace features ten different kinds of semi-precious stone beads including different agates, tiger’s eye, turquoise, moonstone, citrine, jasper and rock crystal, in different shapes. 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 starts from the bead in the centre, moving upwards, with measurement for some of the bigger beads, with metal beads named last.
Length: 62 cm (24.5”) Weight: 145 gms
(centre) Black agate: 38 mm long & 22 mm at its widest
(Left side of frontal shot) amazonite, crackled agate, Mookaite jasper, rock crystal
(Right side) Tiger’s eye: 42 mm long & 19 mm at its widest, Turquoise, Moonstone, Citrine
Yellow agate: 11 mm
Small silver spacers
Granulated Balinese silver discs
Thai patterned silver tubes
Gold filled crimp tubes
Silver hook and ring clasp
Silver Manik identity disc
I thought it would be a relatively simple concept to design a necklace using ten different stones…
As it turned out, I wrestled with getting the colours, the shapes, the placement of the stones to please. I congratulated myself on hitting on the yellow agate as an ‘integrating’ stone, as it was not too bright and not too dull. Recently however, when I reviewed various necklaces and test wore this one against a black top with thin white stripes, I was not very satisfied with the effect. The piece of smokey quartz faded into the black. And so I started all over again. Finally, here it is, after replacing four of the original stones, and moving the new selection around endlessly, to get it ‘right’. I also decided to make the necklace longer, so that most of the stones would be visible from the front and added another pair of silver tubes at the end. There’s a black banded agate in the centre, and moving up on the left of the full photo, amazonite is followed by fire agate, then Mookaite jasper, ending with rock crystal, while on the other side of the necklace, tiger’s eye, then turquoise followed by moonstone, ending with citrine. And throughout, granulated Balinese silver disc spacers. Patterned silver tube lengtheners bring this necklace to 62 cm. I love the coming together of all these different kinds of semi-precious stone beads in their diversity, from the crackling of the agte to the matrix of the turquoise to the splotchy grey of the moonstone!
As you might expect, this necklace is called Ten Stones - the nine big stones, plus the round yellow agate. As is always my tip for asymmetric necklaces, try flipping sides when wearing the necklace to see which look suits you better! Given the variety of colours in Ten Stones, I think you could wear it easily with various shades of white, black, grey, blue, or clash it with fuchsia, raspberry, royal purple. Have fun and enjoy!
