Yoga Necklace

This necklace actually has very little to do with yoga except that I saw a similar design in a yoga catalog. It was actually a bracelet and it wasn’t exactly the same as this necklace, but it sparked the idea. Therefore, I call this my Yoga Necklace.

You’ll need:

18 bugle beads (mine are 1 inch long)
approx. 30 grams of seed beads (Czech or Japanese are fine)
*beading needle & thread
**lots and lots of color coordinating accent beads
scissors
1 8mm bead

*Concerning thread length: I rarely recommend how long a seed beader’s thread should be because this is a personal preference. For me, I don’t work well with anything longer than a hard in a half, or I get it all tangled in knots. This necklace requires 9 strands of beads to be strung, so you will have to add on thread as you work this design up.

**For my accent beads, I dug around and got a little of everything I had that was in the tons of pink since my seed beads were a dark rose. I used all kinds of beads: Czech crystals, pearls, German crystals, Czech size 6 glass, dark burgundy size 11s, clear glass stars, and rose quartz square, heart, and round beads. It depends on what you have and what you like. I stayed in the pink/rose tones, but you could do a multi-colored necklace too.

1. Thread your needle (approx. 1 ½ yards of thread work fine here) and make a ladder using your bugle beads.

2. Now using brick stitch, work back and forth across your ladder until you have one bead at the top.

3. Now, add on 6 seed beads, one 8mm bead, and one seed bead.

4. Skip the last seed bead added, and bring the needle back down through all the beads added in the previous step.

5. Continue to snake the needle back down through on end of your ladder. You have now created one end of the toggle for your necklace.

6. Repeat steps 1 & 2 except end with 2 beads in your row to create the other end of your necklace.

7. Now thread on enough beads to make a loop around your 8mm bead on the other end of your toggle clasp that you are creating. This may vary depending on the seed beads you use. I used 15 in my loop.

8. Using the same technique as in my Fringe 101 Earrings, bring the needle down through the next seed bead in the row to make a loop. You’ll notice in my necklace pictured, I made a loop ending with one bead at the top. However, if I had it to do over again, I would make the loop as I did in the earring project because I think it looks better and is stronger.

9. To reinforce the loop, go back through the loop a few times, make a tiny over hand knot and hide in your beads, and trim off thread. You now have two "ends" to work with to construct the necklace.

10. Now, go back to the thread coming out of your first end made in steps 1 - 5, and start stringing on your seed beads and accent beads randomly so you have an inch or so of seed beads, an accent bead, a few more seed beads, an accent beads…until you have about 15 inches of beads strung.

11. Now thread the needle through the corresponding rung of the ladder on the other end.

12. Bring the needle back down through the next rung of the ladder, and if you have enough thread, string up your next strand of beads. You may need to finish off your thread and start with a fresh one. Continue the same kind of bead design as before mixing seed beads with accent beads.

13. Once you get 15 inches of beads on your second strand, insert the needle into the corresponding rung of the opposite end of your necklace.

14. Continue this process of adding strands and moving back and forth between the two ends until you have completed nine strands.

This project is not real difficult, but it does take some time to put together. However, I think the results are worth the time. You can either wear the necklace loose as pictured above, or you can twist the strands for a different look. I used nine strands in this necklace, but you could make it with fewer strands if you choose. Just make sure that you have an odd number of strands as the brick stitch ends must be constructed with an odd number of beads.

All graphics created by Tammy Powley.

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