This was great fun to make. The starting point was a flat golden ring which came in one of my usual job lots of broken jewellery. No idea what it once was, but I love something I can use as a frame.
I combined some scraps of indigo dyed cotton with sashiko stitching to make a centre for it. I can’t bear to throw away even tiny scraps when they are so pretty and this boro style of stitching is the perfect way of letting them shine.

I gathered up the boro stitched piece around a circle of buckram and then made another plain one with a lovely shibori pattern running across it for the back.

I ladder stitched them together and then stuck the whole thing into the frame.

I wanted to flank the pendant with some cylindrical boro beads, so I stared with a long rectangle of fabric and wound it round my buttonhole ring stick to get an idea of how much fabric would be visible around the outside of the bead when it was all wound up. I stitched a square of fabric – these pieces are getting progressively smaller and smaller! – onto the outside section…

…and then wound the fabric back onto the stick, pinned it and started to buttonhole stitch around the edges to hold it in place.

Once I’d buttonholed top and bottom I continued the stitching over the raw edge to neaten it and close it up. Then onto the second one.

Once that was finished I could get a better idea of how the necklace was going to look.

I felt the fabric beads needed something, perhaps with a different texture, to keep them away from the pendant, so I started hunting through my beads. These hand made glass beads were perfect – the same colours as the embroidery but the shine of the glass contrasts well with the softness of the fabric.

With the addition of a couple of jump rings stitched to the back of the pendant and a gold plated chain, we have a finish!

Available shortly in my Etsy shop!