triz's Proudest Creation

We've asked our Bead Art Original members to tell us about their "proudest creations." In this post, triz tells us about hers, in her own words:

Miriam's Jewels Choker is a bead-embroidered pendant created using matte gold Czech bugles and seed beads, metallic purple and gold Japanese seed beads, gold glass pearls, ruby red and velvet purple Swarovski crystals beaded around two genuine amethyst cabochons. The pendant hangs from a gorgeous supple gold bead-crocheted choker.

Although I'm proud of all my creations, I tend to fall in love with the piece I'm currently working on. Miriam's Jewel is my latest creation and I'm particularly pleased with how it turned out because when I started beading around the amethyst cabochons I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with them. All I knew was that it would be in matt gold. Once I started bead-embroidering around the cabochons, it started to speak to me. I found myself in an almost frenzy, as I started to envision the finished piece and I wanted to see it finished. Each step almost dictated (in my mind) what would happen next, and once the pendant part was finished, the challenge of creating the perfect necklace for it arose. I remembered this gorgeous blood red cord in my stash, which I use for bead-crocheting. The combination of the matte gold beads crocheted with the blood red cord just poking through the gold beads to form a luscious supple choker was just the icing on the cake for this piece. I love how the design developed and how all the elements of this piece fit together perfectly, and although it took me 3 full day (averaging 10 hours/day) the work was effortless and enjoyable. This piece feels and looks rich and majestic, yet modern and wearable. I could not be happier with the way it turned out!