Wearing the Old Ones

On Saturday I spent the majority of the day in the studio. I had a large custom order, to make a bunch of special crosses for a lovely project for someone.

While I was at it, as a sort of self-incentive, I created this wearable piece for myself.

For the longest time I'd had that long chain of vintage pearls in a strand. Someone gave them to me years ago, and I didn't have a way to use them easily.

They couldn't be removed from the string, not without hurting their patina, and re-drilling the holes in them. Here's the idea I had, in how to use the pearls the way they were without making major changes to them.

I created the three-way rosary connector in pewter, and the rose cross. I've been saving the faceted teardrop stone for some time, to use for something special.

To connect the rosary crown to the pearls. I drilled a hole through the sides of the pearls at the ends, after snipping the circular strand apart to make a long single strand of beads. 

Then I ran the long, long length of wire through the hole in the end pearl and made a triangle shape and wrapped the wire around itself to secure the triangle. Then I wrapped and wrapped around the pearl, using the triangular shaped of the wire to create a sort of cone-shaped finish.

You can just see in this photo, on the right side, the hole through the pearl showing. I wore this necklace on Sunday and enjoyed it. It's very, very long so it doesn't need a clasp at all, I just slip it over my head.

Then I could take the wire through the hole in the rosary connector, and finish wrapping the wire. 

Almost like the cone-shaped finish on the faceted stone drop, which had a horizontal hole through it.

So if you have a strand of pearl beads like this, costume pearls, and you don't know how to use them, this might give you some ideas.