Jen's Pinds Necklace with Kim Miles Bead and Green Girl Studios clasp

Kim Mileshttp://www.kimmiles.com lampwork bead, hand riveted with sterling silver end caps, wire wrapped on Kate McKinnonhttp://www.katemckinnon.com fine silver head pin pod

Sterling Green Girl Studioshttp://www.greengirlstudios.com clasp of bee. One of my favorite clasps.

Artistic background by Robert. I think this background , which will be posted, with the necklace on it, in its entirety in my chain maille galleryhttp://www.prettykittydogmoonjewelry.com/untilted.html, is perfect for this bead and necklace. It says Jambo! to me. How about you?

PS: yes, I know the title in the url of my Chain Maille Gallery is "untilted." Pretty pathetic, huh? I have crawled my way this far up the ladder of success, and I still can't figure out how to use keywords or title my site pages or even, apparently, SPELL.

Here is the story of what I think is a lovely necklace however:

I made this necklace yesterday, after making one earring to complete a pair I had to make, which I hope will go in that book I am working on at the moment.

This would be an example of what people like me do to blow it out after working for someone else for a while, if you know what I mean. I really, really had to create something with no strings attached.

I had been planning this necklace for my gallery for a long time...Kim Miles is a dear friend of mine AND she makes good beads. I have used her beads for my chain maille repeatedly. I like this bead in particular because of the little extras like the sparkle you get from the encasing, which she did in a special way which magnifies parts of the bead. You can see that if you look at my close-up. I really love the African look she has been doing lately with her beads on a frequent basis. You never know what she is going to do next.

I want to go live in a mosquito tent with a big bed in it, and wear khaki shorts and white v neck undershirts and tan boots and write poetic journals about the local animals I am befriending, none of which are snakes. Maybe they are Gorillas in the Mist, or maybe they are something Meryl Streep or Glenn Close got to know. A kitten they found or something. I could befriend a kitten in Africa and call it "Trixie". This could be good.

They say you need to be tuff to make Jen's Pinds linkage <--they always call it linkage--why? I don't know-- because the rings are heavy, and hard to manipulate, and some people find that working with them tires them out. Here is what I say: ok, that may be true, but this is perfect when possibly you just need to express yourself. And that is what I did, all day yesterday, and past ten o'clock last night. I would say this necklace took me twelve hours, but I had a couple of things I had to do so let's make that more like 11 1/2. I love Urban Maille's http://www.urbanmaille.com shiny sterling jump rings, and that is what these are. I learned how to make Jen's Pinds linkage from Aislyn of UrbanMaille, in fact. I hope she likes this when she sees it. As I would be any teacher, I am slightly nervous . Will I get an A? Will she spot a mistake in my chain? If SHE happens upon one, I sure don't see it. I think I did a nice job on this weave.

Off to journal in the jungle.