The Final Mystery

The other day, I sat down to finally make a bracelet that my sister had sketched for me, to use the special Sphinx gold bead from Green Girl Studios (I have a bit of a problem designing with Special Beads, which Green Girl beads always are). I dutifully pulled out the bag she'd put together containing all the beads required (gold bead, black lava coins, topaz crystal rondelles), and began to string theprescribed pattern of gold bead on the end, then alternating lava and crystal rondelles paired with tiny silver spacers.

But I found I didn't want to make a simple bracelet. Then inspiration hit me--I strung a topaz/gold Scooplet beaded bead in between the last two lava coins, and the necklace snowballed from there. I went on up the side of what I realized was fast becoming a necklace, stringing my remaining topaz crystal rondelles between silver spacers and gold seed beads, finishing with a flourish--a long loop of gold seed beads back down the strand. The other side would be a single strand, so to balance the lighter but double strand of the first side,  I pulled out some darker topaz/amber pressed and faceted glass, ending again with a loop of seed beads connecting with the first loop. A gold filigree navette clasp near the sphinx bead completed the necklace.

The sphinx bead reads 'the final mystery is oneself'.