Avatar Necklace

I've had these elements in my bead stash for at least a year, but hadn't figured out how to turn them into anything.  Then a couple of weeks ago I dreamed about a possible design, which I sketched while trying to stay awake during the Preliminary Design Review of a program that I am working on.  That original design idea did not work, but it got me playing with the elements.  The beads in the outer spots of the dish are all glass, but they look like stone.  The problem that I was trying to solve was how to work the triangles (that look kind of like shark teeth) into the design because their hole is in the middle, front to back, making it a challenge to attach them into anything.  As is so often the case, the solution was easy, once I stopped fighting the nature of the beads.  I remembered that I had a strand of semi-precious stones that were not spherical, but were instead rounded cubes (the ones in the center of the dish).  So, I decided to go for simple and strung them all on some Soft Flex beading wire.

The resulting necklace reminds me of something that the Na'vi might wear on Pandora from the movie Avatar, hence the name of the piece.  I had an odd number of the interstitial beads, so I added 3 to one side and 4 to the other side before I attached the clasp.  By doing this I actually compensate for the asymmetry of the clasp itself.  The loop adds extra length, in comparison to the bar, but thanks to the extra bead the necklace hangs symmetrically.