Cut from the Same Fabric: Day 7

I think this is day 7 at least! I am already losing track of time.  Oh, and a quick moment, I MUST celebrate the fact that May-Treanor and Walsh-Jennings are in the sand volleyball finals again. I used to play volleyball some, so I love seeing them play.

Anyway, my mom came up with the idea yesterday after making the skirt that I should make something from some of the remaining fabric...challenge accepted!  I wanted to make a statement necklace...but it ended up the same size as a regular necklace, but I still think it is SUPER COOL.

Materials you will need:
-Excess Fabric (in my case, the halter top part of my dress)
-Wood Beads (I find these in packs of 8 near the jewelry section of my favorite craft store, where leather working stuff is)  I used 5 beads in my necklace.
-Other beads, such as silver ones, to use as spacers
-An old beaded necklace you never wear but can upcycle (or strings, clasps, and beads if you don't have one)
-Wildfire cord (or other beading string)
-Needle and thread
-E6000 (optional)

You may want to use better scissors than I did.  Luckily, I didn't really care.

Alright so my theory was sew the fabric around the bead so to speak, mostly by catching the fabric while threading the needle through the bead hole.  If you are going to do it this way you really need to use some thin beading cord (I used wildfire cord) that fits through a needle so that you can string them later, because unless you precisely cut the material it will fill up the hole.

Precision and my attention span never cooperate.

Regardless, do this to all of your wood beads, focusing on the pattern if it matters to you.  This could aslo be done with embroidery thread, very thin strips of fabric, rawhide, etc, really with anything that you could loop through the hole and glue if you preferred not to sew.

You have to start pulling really tight toward the end so that it pulls the fabric back through the hole.  I cut any excess fabric off and did what I like to call a "running whip stitch" (Grey's Anatomy fan) to secure the loose end.

Does it look anything like a real RWS? Oh probably not.  But since I don't know what it looks like, I am going to pretend that it is identical.

PhD in Crafts, baby.

Anyway.  I had a multistrand necklace that had about 4 strands on each side of small white beads and a pendant in the middle.  I cut the cord where the pendant was with the remaining necklace creatively held so that beads did not spill everywhere.

I took about a half inch or so of beads off each side of the necklace.  I threaded some wildfire cord through a needle and sent it through all of the beads.  As you can see I used some silver beads, I like to think they have a little tribal flair in them, between the fabric covered beads.

With the old necklace I just knotted the strands on each side and then tied the ends of the Wildfire cord through them as well. 

I also went ahead and added some E6000 glue at the knots, because I get a little paranoid about my knot tying abilities.

It is my goal to wear a necklace I made on the first day of graduate school, which won't be difficult because I have quite a few of them already, and I definitely think this guy is in the running.

SO raid your closets, raid your jewelry boxes, and go find something to upcycle!

Day 7 and going strong.

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