There is a whole range of interesting stone that comes in what I call the bronze/green/brown sequence, and mentally think of as “sun & dappled shade upon leaf, limb and earth.” Rhyolite, or rainforest jasper, tops my list, but unakite, olive green with salmon (orangey pink, to those of you not into the fancy naming conventions) flecks, definitely belongs in this category.
The unusual light celery green elements by the carps’ tails initially attracted me to this accent piece. Unakite, as it mixes orange and green, has always appealed to me, and this necklace is primarily composed of the stone. It also includes abalone and luhanos shell, sterling and victorian steel cut (on the donut) metal beads. Typically I mix more types of stone in a piece this complex; in this one I got the range in color and value by carefully selecting unakite beads with unusual amounts of black or cream in addition to the typical olive and salmon colors. The braid is Oimatsu gumi, “old pine tree”. Unlike the hard smooth braids I'd done up to this point, 8 strands at a time are braided for three sequences; then they rest, or float, and the other eight move, to give the ridged pattern. Consequently it's faster, though not as strong, to make (though I imagine any braid made of 16 strands of stringing weight silk is plenty strong enough to support a necklace!)
The back is also sort of interesting: Though I'm very lazy about good finish when I'm doing embroidery, necklaces are a different story. I like the back to look as good as the front, and show good finish. This piece shows how I used glass beads to dress up the threads going behind the accent piece.
The body of the necklace is 8 inches long; the silk cords (not including tassels) are approximately 9 and a half inches long each, for a total length of about 27 inches, with 3 inches of fringe additonal on the ends. The accent is about 2 inches at its widest point. Unakite, abalone, sterling silver, cut steel, silk.
Collection of the artist
Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.
