Last week I taught a private lesson in how to use the knotter tool. I needed some beads as a demo, so I picked these moonstone 8mm plain round beads, thinking they would look very nice knotted like pearls. I was so wrong about that! The hole sizes in the beads were inconsistent, so sometimes the knot would slip into the hole. When I adjusted the size of thread to compensate for that, then it wouldn’t go through some of the other holes. So, even though I was able to teach the lesson, the necklace just never did come together. I did have an idea in my head where the beads were kind of spaced apart by the knots and there were 3 strands to the necklace. So, I wanted to somewhat stick with that. Then it hit me, “hey, the lesson is over. I do not have to knot them. Rethink the design.” Consequently, I went to plan “B” and made little dangles, stringing them somewhat close together to get a similar effect but the technique was different, so the hole sizes didn’t matter any more.

I really loved the color of these spessartite garnet chips, but what a pain in the patootie they were to string. The chips were so tiny I kept dropping them. The transparency also made it difficult to see the hole. In fact, most of the time I couldn’t see the hole opening, just the line where the drilling was and had to guess where it opened up on the outside. I would feel around that point with the end of the string until I got it to go into the hole. “Sheesh” I thought, “is this self punishment or what?”

I used Fireline 14 lb. crystal to string these beads for two reasons. First, being white, it wouldn’t show through the transparent garnet and translucent labradorite chips. Second, I could tie a very small knot that would not show up much. A crimp bead next to these tiny chips would have just been like a big pimple right in the middle of the nose - way too obvious to ignore.

I started out using my design board to space the length of the strands. However, after stringing two strands I could see it was making the distance between the strands just too far apart and the shortest strand would be too short for anyone that had anything other than a tiny neck. So, I ripped that string off and started again, leaving the middle string alone. That way I was able to make the shortest string longer and then adjust the length of the longest string to match realtive to the middle one. I felt this was the way to go that involved the least amount of work. Believe me, undoing that one string was painful. I would have rathered listen to fingernails scratching on a blackboard considering how difficult the garnet chips were to string.

All in all, I think it turned out OK. Now I just have to caclulate what the materials cost and make a sacrifice on the labor. The whole thing took me about a week to get done, working on it briefly each time I picked up the project. If I counted my hours, I’d price it at something like $200+ but I doubt it could command that price in the market. So. . . I’ll just go with my “gut feel” on pricing. I’m thinking it should go for something like $60-$70? I’ll mull that over as I get a better photo taken at home, where my photo studio is located.