Come to the Green Wood

I normally post these over at my shop blog, but I figured I'd give y'all a chance to see how I make my jewelry.

In the green wood you know anything that you see
Could be ancient gods in some disguise;
In the green wood you touch on the last mystery,
And you can't put your trust in your eyes.
In the green wood surrender the things that you know,
Let your heart tell you just what it sees.
In the green wood take all that you are, and let go;
Put your faith and your light in the trees.
Seanan McGuire, Come to the Green Wood

I picked up these lovely carved stone beads at my favourite local bead shop, The Bead Lounge. They were tagged as 'crazy stone', which as far as I can tell is their way of saying 'we're not quite sure what it is, but isn't it awesome?'. And I'm not sure either, but they're awesome.

And a few weeks ago -- perhaps as long as a month, now -- I read the lyrics to a new song by Seanan McGuire, filker extraordinaire. And as I read them, a necklace took shape in my mind.

It was a while before I actually got the chance to let it come out properly, but today as I worked it made its slow way to the forefront.

Before I started the necklace I made a couple of paternosters (about which more later). During that process I happened to lay the carved beads next to the few jade beads I had left and voila! Yeah, those look good together.



I needed more -- I only had seven of the jade beads left, and it was still not quite right anyway -- so I dug around until I found the gold-dyed pearls. There were just enough of those left, too, proving that this necklace is a truly karmic piece!

...okay, that might be laying it on a little thick.

I've had these wood beads for a while and never found the right piece to use them with -- well, this was the right one. That's when I realized which piece I was making, and which song it was for. The tiny gold-coloured seed beads added the perfect finishing touch, just enough to brighten the necklace and set everything else off.



It's a good long piece, too, at twenty-six inches. Luxurious, one might say. Or at least, well, long. I'm pleased with it.

If you're interested (and you should be!) the rest of the lyrics to the song are at Seanan's LiveJournal. Amusingly enough, it's part of a group of songs she's written to prompts from yet more jewelry -- pendants with bits and snatches of quotes on them, made by the brilliant Chimera Fancies. I can't find the post where the pendant this is based on (if indirectly) appeared, but have a look here and here to see some of her lovely work.



Kitten not included.