Craft Project Wednesday: Random Café au Lait necklace

Craft Project Wednesday is a 2012 recurring blog post

where I present a craft project I'm currently working on.

So, I've written before about knotting necklaces. And how there's enough tutorials found online about that. Just google it, I promise you're sure to find one to your likning.

My "random" Café au Lait necklace,
still lacking a clasp but otherwise nearly completed.
Hence, the tape and taped together strings.

What I, however, haven't written about is how long I've waited and much I've wanted to make a copy of the "Café au Lait"-necklace found in the book "Mastering the Art of Beading" by Genevieve A. Sterbenz. 

Well, the answer is "long enough". Really. That book is one of the best books - if not THE best book - I've read at least so far about making bead and wire jewelry. It's clearly thought through, written in such a way that it's an absolute delight to read, the photos illustrate just what they're supposed to and nothing more, and the layout (with a complete glossary about techniques, with photos, in the back).... oh my, how I adore this book.

Oh, and the book even have 10 extra projects listed online for you to read. Yum!

Excerpt from the book.
How aptly the author writes it:
"bonus projects". Because you'd only
known this if you'd bothered to read
through the introduction.

If you'd buy only one beading book as a reference book, then this would be the one. I'm certainly gonna buy it, as soon as I get those extra 30 euros saved away for it... *sigh* Having a limited budget sure sucks.

Well, the project named "Café au Lait" in this book is a knotted necklace with a color scheme of soft browns & beige & golds. You can see what it looks like in the photo here under; it's the middle project on the first row. 

Excerpt from the back cover.
Middle project, first row, that's the one I'm talking about.

I wouldn't have had any beads suitable for it unless I would have gotten some as a Christmas present from Mimi. In her own word she "was very likely not to ever use them, so why not donate them" to me instead. The color scheme they have is more cold bronze/brown/beige, but it still suits the "idea" of the project, so I went for it.

After some heavy thinking and weighting of options, I used the nylon thread I bought from Blingi last Christmas (quite thick, but I have no idea about it's wpi!). It's really slippery, and won't knot well, so I actually didn't. Just used it as I would regular wire. I'm sure this decision will come back to haunt me later, but...

Finally, my bigger bead board is empty!
I was going slightly bonkers from not being able to move it,
because of all the pearls already put into the design on it.

The hardest thing about designing this whole necklace was to randomize the positions of the beads. I think too much in symmetry to get a pattern to truly look random. Which is why this was a good training exercice. Just like a computer, I find randomization hard.

And yes, as evident from the photo, my desk is filled with an odd assortment of bric-a-brac. Nothing new there... But it IS easier and faster now to clear away the non-needful things, thanks to the black drawers I got. 

There, nicely tucked away with a reminder that I have to fix
a clasp and 4 clam shell caps for it. Oh, and just to make some
"smygreklam", I wrote it on a Nordlek 2012 card for you to see :) 

So, only thing left on this project is two little things: clasp and some caps.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get those soon, so that I can get this whole thing done ASAP. Otherwise, it will be like "just the zipper and hem"-thing in the post about the Frostbite dress.