The Carmilla necklace...

I have finished the Carmilla today. It is a very dark and heavy necklace, and named after the short Gothic novel "Carmilla", by the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan le Fanu. Yes, it is a novel about vampires and preceding "Dracula" by 30 years or so. If you wish, you can read it here.

Here it is:

For Carmilla I have used the following:

- One big black obsidian carved rose;
- Ten large dragon vein purple round beads;
- Two oval Indian amethyst wedding cake beads with gold foil;
- Twelve medium Argentinian amethyst beads;
- Six small purple jade beads;
- Eight smaller purple chrysocollas;
- Four Swarovski bicones in purple velvet;
- Antique gold bead caps and stardust small spacers;
- Two small black Swarovski crystal pearls for a finishing touch near the clasps;
- Antique gold flowery clasps.

Some close-ups below...


On the 1st picture, a detail of the Indian wedding cake, much similar to the ones I used for Violeta and Violeta 2, along with the bead caps and pretty dragon vein beads, with their fabulous texture. Right above it, you can see a bit of the chrysocollas and jade beads.
You might think Jade is a green stone mainly, but there are many other wonderful colour occurrences, such as: purple, violet, different yellow shades, orange, pink, fuchsia, red, blues, white etc... It is an amazing stone to work with, always smooth, strong, and not very heavy. I love it.
On the 2nd one, a magnified shot of the obsidian carved rose, very heavy and shiny.


The 1st shot shows the back of the necklace. I had to use two stardust spacers to cover the wire as usual and also crimps to hold the large rose in place. This can be seen in more detail on the 2nd picture at the right. The stardust balls are followed by some lovely purple velvet AB (Aurora Borealis) bicones and two smaller spacers on both sides.
The rose being that heavy, it actually broke the necklace the 1st time and had to re-string it using a thicker wire.


These pictures show the clasp in detail, front and back, along with the stardust spacers and the little Swarovski black pearls. The loop and crimp can also be seen, along with a knot cover that I used in one of the ends to hide a little gap that left the wire exposed at first. It worked great actually, and I turned the cover into a little ball with the help of my pliers. Very cool!