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Hi this is Julie with Beadaholique.com
and today I want to show you how to make a knotted pearl necklace
in a continuous strand where you don't actually have a
clasp. We just have a knot between each of your pearls
we had a couple of requests for this so I wanted to take some time and
show you actually how to do this. The more traditional way that you are probably
familiar with
is how to do a knotted pearl necklace
with a clasp and then you have these little clam shell that go over the last knot on
each end and then you can use those to attach a jump ring or attach a clasp
to. So we have another video showing you how to do that
but I do wanna show you how to do it without having
an end point to it and just a continuous strand
To begin you're going to need a pair of scissors. I'm going to show you how to
pearl knotting with tweezers. I have a pair of tweezers
you're going to need some tape, you need some pearls. I have two strands here that
are about 15 and a half inches long
each. So that is something important to keep in mind. If you are going to do this where
you don't have a clasp
you'll need to make a necklace long enough to slip easily over your head. So you're
probably looking at least 26 or 28 inches
and maybe a little bit longer than that just to be
on the safe side and then I have some Griffin Silk and this a size 4
and I'm gonna go with a little bit of a thinner size which is a size four. It's not the
thinnest but it is a little bit on the thin side
and that's because I have to be able to go through my last pearl
twice with this and that's important to keep in mind because if you're
silk is thin enough to go through the pearl once
but too thick to go through it twice. It's not going to work for this
applications, so keep that in mind. So let's begin. Take your Griffin
Silk off the card
unwind it and if you're not familiar with Griffin Silk
it's a really nice quality thin
silk braid, silk cord and it has a needle
that comes already attached. Go ahead straighten out that needle
just use my fingers and then you are going to want to pre stretch
your cord
Mine has a little knot on the ends. I'm just gonna take my tweezers and
carefully get that knot out
okay so now I'm ready to begin. I'm going to start by taking
a little piece of tape and putting it
several inches, about five or six
from my tail
now the first bead that I'm going to string on is gonna be the one I have to go
through twice
so before I actually put it all the way onto my
Griffin Silk, I'm gonna look at my pearls and you'll notice
they have slightly different size holes, you can see like this one here is quite tiny
this one is a little bit bigger
try to pick a bigger one put it onto my needle
slide it down
and now I'm going to try to go back through it
just to make sure that I can pass through this particular one
twice and that's
feeling a little challenging. I'm going to see if I can find one with a bigger hole
now if you don't want to worry about this, you could pick
a pretty decorative bead like a bicone bead or maybe a Beadelle Pave Crystal
or something really sparkly and decorative
and see if you want to use that as your first bead that you have passed through and
then do the rest
with the pearls. Do not
skip this first step because you could end up at the very end
and your necklace is not going to work
right I'm not happy with that either
now if you have a bead reamer you could go ahead and use it
and make your hole a little bit larger but I didn't want to
make you have to do that with this particular project and actually this hole
looks pretty nice and big. I think we're gonna be fine
there we go
and that went through very easily. So just be patient
try a few, make sure that you have one that works and now I'm going to slide
this one all the way down to my tape
and now from now on I'm not going to worry about
the holes being too big because I only going to have to past through once
so I'm not going to create a knot right after that pearl, I'm just gonna leave it and
I'm gonna put another pearl onto my needle
and slide it down. Right now I'm going to create my first knot
I'm going to create a simple overhand knot
pull my Griffin Silk all the way through
put my tweezer through
the middle of my knot and I'm going to grab
the Griffin Silk right where it comes out
from the beads. Now I going to let my knot
side all the way down to my tweezers
remove my tweezers and use them
to scoot that knot down. I'll show you that a couple more times
string on a pearl, slide it down
make a simple
overhand knot, put your tweezers
through the middle of the knot and grab the silk
right where it comes out from the bead. There you go
remove your tweezers, scoot the knot down
and add another bead
this is a very traditional to do this method with pearls
you can do this with all sorts of beads. A couple of advantages
one it really does protect the pearls from knocking against each other
and two if your necklace ever breaks
lose that one pearl or that one bead
the others are all gonna be knotted together
So I'm going to go ahead keep adding more pearls with a knot between
each
and then when I get to the end I'm going to comeback and show you how to finish
you're knotted pearl necklace in a continuous strand
with a knot between each and no clasp. So I've gone ahead and I've knotted all my
pearls. I'm going to show you, you have about an 30 inch necklace here
that's going to easily slip overhead and I
love, if you haven't felt knotted pearls before they feel so good. They've got a lot of
flexibility to them because they're really jointed between
each pearl, so they hang really nice and they drape
beautifully. So I wanna show you how to finish this off without having to use a
clasp
so you remember I have my piece of tape at this end and I have my two pearls
which are scooted together without a knot. Now before I came back on the video
I ended up adding my last pearl and knotting right after it
and I'm going to add one more pearl just so you can see the process
alright so
knot pearl, knot pearl, knot pearl
and then I've got pearl, no knot pearl
and the piece of tape. So I'm going to remove my piece of tape
take my needle
remember that important first step that we did we make sure that
your needle we'll go back through this pearl a second time
so there's no knot
at the other end this pearl either right now, take your needle
go back through that first pearl you strung
gonna pull your ends together
I want you to see this as clearly as possible. See what's happening
you criss-crossed your two tails
in the middle of that first pearl you strung
and now you have 3 pearls together and they don't have
a knot between them. What you're going to do with your tails now is you're going
to create a knot between them
so
make a loop
go around the pearl like so
and come back through. See what I did
and I'm just going
to pull
push that down and now I've got a knot
between those two pearls and do the same thing on the other side
I don't need this much thread to work with anymore so I'm gonna cut that off so
I don't have to worry about it
I want to create a knot on this side
create my loop
go around that pearl, come back through
up and under and through
now I'm just going to pull it
pull tight. Now what you wanna do
take your scissors, trim it
you may want to use a little bit of a sharper
point, more pointed scissor to do this just so you don't have any little tail
end sticking out
and then what I would recommend is I would take a little GS hypo cement
and I would just put a little dab of glue right there
over that knot and right there over that knot, let it dry
overnight and you're gonna have a strand of pearls
thats continuously knotted without a clasp
Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!