This necklace was made for a friend. She has a viking persona, so she needed a necklace.
My inspiration was the necklace that can be found at
this link .
The original colors I wanted were coral and green, which would have more closely matched the necklace above, but the coral effetre 104 COE glass is
problematic . It tends to turn grey unless treated a specific way in the flame, something called striking, which
I can not do with the torch I have. So we added in yellow and orange instead of the coral, and things got much easier from there on.
This necklaces is mostly made from monochrome beads, just like the example I linked to above. I added in a few different types of polychrome bead designs, and those designs can be documented very easily using Johan Callmer's book "Trade Beads and Bead Trade in Scandinavia."
I tried to keep the organization of the beads on the necklace feeling somewhat random, just like the the viking necklace I used as inspiration. I did this by creating a variety of colors, and shapes in the beads, and also by stringing them onto the necklace in a random pattern.
There are approximately 180 beads in this necklace!
Making this necklace was a useful experience because I had the chance to practice making very simple beads, and it became much easier and faster for me to make these beads over time and after all this practice. I even learned how to make more than one bead on a mandrel at a time.
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Close up view of a few of the beads.
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| Beads broken out into piles by type |
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| Final Necklace. Glass beads (made by me) with store bought amber beads and an amber Thor's hammer. |
The necklace I used as inspiration was not all made from glass. In the future I might try to mix glass beads I make with store bought stone beads to more closely match what was done with some period necklaces.
Another bead made with that same wave pattern. This one came from a picture in Callmer's bead typology . It was originally dark blue, but I made the base it black for the person who had asked for this bead. It is similar to some of the beads pictures on this post from the Text and Trowel Blog.
To recreate, as accurately as possible, a style of early medieval bead known as Reticella beads. In working to recreate this bead, my hope was also to improve my ability to create and work with twisted glass rods, as the use of these glass rods is the major skill required to make Reticella beads. 
