Sunflower Necklace

I am so pleased to have finally made this necklace for myself. I bought the hollow beads from Andrea Guibelli when we were in Venice in May. He makes them on a hollow mandrel and the end that isn't on the mandrel, he heats up and blows through the mandrel to blow out a hole. Very clever indeed. These beads are steel grey. I made the tiny spacers to match. The stunning silver focal lentil bead is one of Rebecca Crabtree's. She makes some beautiful beads using silver clay. You can see her work in her Etsy Shop.

Here is a close-up of the focal;



And a close-up of one of the hollows;



I've finised the necklace off with some byzantine weave. The clever thing is that the chain clips off so I can easily swap it onto other necklace frontpieces! Now I can have lots and lots and lots and lots(!) of necklaces without spending an arm and a leg on silver. With the way the price of silver has been rocketing lately, I'm quite pleased with my ingenuity!