Tribute to Downton Abbey

Disclaimer: I want to thank Artbeads.com for providing me with the gorgeous crystals and seed beads to create this fantastic necklace.

I was asked by Artbeads.com to create something with the theme, ‘What’s Old is New Again.” I recently watched season 1 of Downton Abbey on Netflix. I am dying to see season 2—but in the interim I’ve been watching a ton of movies or TV series that feature the royals. It’s no surprise that the jewelry showcased blows my mind. The amount of detail and grandeur is amazing. (And now I’m hooked on Tudors!)

When I saw this pattern, Fit for a Queen, in my most recent copy of BeadAndButton.com’s magazine, “Right Angle Weave” I knew I just HAD to make it. It features pendants by Swarovski, xilion bicones, and tons of gorgeous seed beads. I finished the necklace with a really pretty antique S clasp.

My only issue with the pattern is that I think they miscounted the number of crystals. In the section regarding “Small Units” they say to substitute 3mms for the 4mms, 11s for the 8s, and 15s for 11s. If you do that, you’ll need another 75 3mm bicones. When I looked at the picture more closely (after running out of bicones) I noticed that it looks like instead of 4mms they are using the 8 seed beads. I really liked the look of more crystals so I ordered more bicones to finish the project.

 

What I used

• Montana Sapphire crystals in 4mm and 3mm
• Swarovski Pendants
• TOHO™ Bead Round 8/0 Frosted Silver-Lined Dark Gold
• TOHO™ Bead Round 11/0 Metallic Dark AB Iris