I have created this piece for a challenge, thropugh one of the beading groups i belong to, Beaddreamz@yahoogroups.com The theme for this challenge is Ocean Adventures. I love the beach, the ocean, the sand the coast, mermaids, fish and coral and everything about it!! It was too tempting not to do a piece! The focal bead is from Earthworks Glass on ebay. They make beautiful glass beads, vessels and paperweights.
The base for this piece is done in 4 bead tubular herringbone stitch. I then added the focal using a small spiral rope piece, as the bead had a "loop" rather than a "hole". From there i added loads of branched fringing and added pearls, swarovski bicones and my own little 3D jellyfish. I made these by making 3 heart shapes in brick stitch with the base row being 5 beads wide. I then sewed these together with the points meeting at the top. I then added fringing where you go back through the strand and skip every secong or third bead to make it crunch up like tentacles. There are also 3 swarovski star fish which i loved and was so glad to find a use for them here.
The clasp is based on instuctions from Laura McCabe's Crystal book.
