Shiny Things Gallery | Necklaces | Beaded | Nine Dragons Collar
Legends insist that the Five Great Desert Temples are guarded by nine dragon siblings; two to each directional temple, the eldest one in the center. They are fair dragons, now, and certainly would not do harm to anyone who approached without mallice in their heart; but they will defend their land and each other from fools. The treasure, you see, is what changes with every telling. Is it gold? Jewels? Knowledge? Power beyond human comprehension? No one has ever managed to return to tell.
Last time I was in Georgia, I went dragon hunting. Which is to say that my (very patient, supportive) partner in crime and I spent 15 minutes combing through a huge bin of cloisonne beads just to find these tiny articulated dragons that I had never seen anywhere before. I had to have them! They were all just a touch beat up, and I kept one that had been broken (he's fixed now, though). The ones used in the necklace were cleaned up a little and reinforced, but all of the little nicks and bends were kept. They've got more personality that way.
I don't really want to talk about how much time it took, because I just plain did not start counting and I refuse to look back and see how many days I was working on it. The upper part was a very "I wonder what would happen if..." thing that took way longer than I expected due to reinforcing absolutely everything for stability, and then the netting that lead down to the dragons... just kind of happened. And of course I wanted to practice more with beading around cabochons, so. Yes. Um, I don't know what happened, but at least it's shiny?
Normally when I do this kind of netting, I go over every diamond meticulously to get them all to be that perfect diamond shape... but this time, I left a few "loose". It's a stylistic choice; the dragons themselves look like ancient treasures, so I wanted the rest of the necklace to reflect that. It's not any less strong or solidly built, it just looks "a little old". The same "stylistic choice" exists with the ever so slight angling of the fiber optic stone so that it catches the light more easily. It's supposed to be magic, after all.
The one problem with having a scrawnier neck than anyone you know is trying to model a collar that's technically just a little too big for you even on the tightest setting. Ah well, I tried.
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