Purple and gold pearls and crystal flowers

This was one of my most challenging commissions so far. I was sent a picture from a Sunday colour supplement showing a model wearing a necklace, which on closer inspection turned out to be two necklaces together. My brief was to create something with the same general shape and feel as the two necklaces together, in a purple and gold colour scheme to match an outfit (which I did not get to see).

The necklace pictured in the colour supplement was made from pearls and large round and oval blue cut stones in metal settings - as I am still learning metalworking I decided to use a different technique to create the rounded shapes needed. The one I am most familiar with is Japanese crystal weaving using monofilament - various shapes can be created by successive passes of monofilament through regularly shaped beads such as Swarovski crystals (particuarly bicones) or Japanese cylinder beads.