How to Make a Handknotted Pearl Necklace with Pendant

Handknotted Pearl Necklace with Pendant

This handknotted pearl necklace has a pendant made from a pear-cut blue topaz in a sterling basket setting. You can change the beads of the necklace or use a different pendant... the basic techniques allow for a lot of classy designs!

Skill Level	Intermediate. Try this once you are comfortable with the basic techniques.
Time Required	1-2 hours.

Materials	Comments
Setting	I used a cast sterling silver basket setting to accept a faceted pear-cut blue topaz.
Stone	Calibrated stones yield a more assured fit. The depth of a stone will vary, so not all settings will accept all stones of a certain size. My stone is a 9x6-mm blue topaz.
Smooth jaw pliers	I used flatnose pliers, but you could use stone-setting pliers or nylon-jaw pliers. No teeth or you will scratch the setting!
Loupe	Optional, but nice to have.
Stringing Material	I used size F silk, but you could use heat-treated nylon or string the necklace on beading wire.
Pearls	I used a strand of 5.5-mm potato-shape pearls, with a pair of 4.5-mm pearls near the pendant.
2 Bead Tips	or other appropriate endings, such as crimps or bullion.
1 Clasp	Fishhooks are very secure, but I liked this round sterling clasp.
Tweezers	I have one favorite pair of tweezers that I use for knotting. Some people prefer a pin or knot two strands (no tweezers needed).

This piece brings together several basic techniques to create a beautiful piece of jewelry.

Without a doubt, this has been one of the most popular designs I have sold! It looks great using a wide variety of stones and pendant shapes. I'll tell you how I make this necklace and also point out alternative methods for achieving a similar style. Here's a look at all of the materials I used (except I also conditioned the silk with beeswax and I used silver nail polish to secure the knots in my bead tips). For this necklace, I first set the stone to make the pendant (cursing all the way, since the reason this stone is still in my possession is because its cutting was strange). Next came the stringing. I threaded all the pearls and the pendant onto my spool of silk. I attached a bead tip to the end of the spool and started knotting. When I reached the end, I cut the silk from the spool, attached a second bead tip, and fastened the clasp onto the bead tips. Sounds simple, right?

If you have a pre-made pendant, good for you! If you're setting a stone, you can review the instructions here. For my pear setting, I had to use my pliers to open the prongs a bit wider than they were. I inserted the stone, checked to make sure it was level, and started applying pressure to prongs diagonal from each other, working around and tightening the stone until it was secure. As I mentioned, this stone was problematic, so this step took me half an hour (which is longer than the rest of the necklace took!). However, it's important to take your time to do the setting well. You don't want the stone to come loose or be set off-balance. And, of course, you don't want to chip it or break it or mar the setting.

Pearl strands are rarely, if ever, perfect. If you have a strand that you are stringing for sentimental value, you will probably want to use all of your pearls. On the other hand, if you are using a strand fresh from the pearl farm, you can expect to cull some pearls. Depending on the grade of the strand and the supplier, you may find pearls that have poor or double drilling, don't match well enough for color, have a non-matching shape or size, or have unacceptable surface imperfections. I mention this because the necklace, as I have made it, has its pearls and pendant strung prior to knotting. It can be hard to predict the number of pearls that may be rejected, so you may wish to have a second strand available to supplement your pearls, or at least look the pearls over before you start stringing. Knotting can add an inch (or a few) to the total length of the necklace. So, I put half the (acceptable) pearls onto the silk, a smaller pearl, the pendant, another small pearl, and the second half of the strand. When you string on the pendant (or attach the clasp), think about which way you want it to face. Some people prefer to have clasps open on one particular side.

There are at least two other ways to make the necklace. You could string it on beading wire (e.g., Accuflex) instead of silk and use crimps to attach the clasp. A wire necklace is less flexible than a silk necklace, but has the advantage of not requiring restringing. If you use wire/crimps, you may wish to add spacer beads between the pearls (e.g., small glass, metal, or gem beads) to offset them to best advantage. Knotting protects the nacre of pearls, which are soft, so if your pearls are valuable or treasured, it's better to knot them. However, some people are very uncomfortable doing single-cord knotting (which is simply a repetition of this type of knot). An alternative is to cut the silk from the spool (3-4 times the intended length of the necklace) and run it through a bead tip or bullion, so that the bead tip/bullion is at the middle of the length of silk (or other stringing material). Tie a knot after the bullion or bead tip (overhand or something fancier), run both strands through a pearl, tie a knot, run the strands through a pearl, tie a knot, etc.

You can make your own bullion if you need to by wrapping a fine gauge wire (e.g., 32 ga. or higher) around a pin or fine dowel to form a coil. Cut two lengths of coil using your wire cutters. To use the bullion to attach a clasp, you thread your string inside the coil and put the clasp over the coil. Tie the sides of the string together, making a teardop shape of the coil. If your coil is large enough, you can strengthen the connection by weaving the string back through the coil multiple times. Another place to use bullion is with the pendant, where a small coil is strung onto the string with the pendant over it.

I didn't use bullion under the pendant. I knotted after the first small pearl, slid the pendant and the second small pearl across, and knotted after the second pearl. In my necklace, the pendant rests between the small pearls atop the knot between them. Now, if you used silk, you can expect some slight stretching of the necklace with wear. I knot silk quite tightly against the pearls, but it isn't uncommon for the necklace to gain an inch or two from the time it is made until the time it requires re-stringing (usually a few years later). This doesn't generally pose a problem for a necklace, but it is more noticeable for a bracelet, where any slight size change can be noticed by the wearer. If you use heat-treated nylon (e.g., silkon), you will get less stretching (although with reduced fluidity too).


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