A Frayed Heart Necklace Tutorial

This is the newest project up on our site. It features a lovely LORiOLA lampwork glass heart from Lori Flanders, a North Carolina glass bead maker we really love. These new hearts are so yummy I wanted to use them in designs that were for year-round wear. I have also been wanting to make a neck wire with fraying ribbon for about 5 years.

Really.

Do you ever have those ideas that just keep percolating in your mind, bubbling to the surface now and again until you just MUST use them? This is one of those ideas.

I took a class with Susan Lenart Kazmer in 2005 at Art & Soul and we made a necklace on a hard neck wire. We covered our wire with a sleeve of leather but I remember as I was doing the class project I kept thinking about frayed silk dupioni...The idea started out as stitched frayed silk but it slowly evolved to this wrapped form and I really like this version best.

See the full tutorial here. See Lori Flander's beads here.