Almost, But Not Quite

In my last epic, I described my struggles with my beaded bezel. Well, I've had some success, and more struggling. The bezel itself looks great. It took about four tries to figure out what to do in the center of the donut, and about six to get the embellishments around the outside to satisfy me. 

Now I'm between the first and second attempt to fasten it to the spiral (a Cellini spiral with drop beads for the large spine). The problem is that there is no single place that's the "center" of the strand, and what there is is angled with the spiral. The first time through, I picked the wrong spiral. Oops. Offcenter is not what I want.  But the way the pendant and the necklace strand look together is pleasing me greatly.

I may end up doing some kind of netting between the pendant and the spiral, I'm not sure those bugle beads are going to make it. The good thing about beads is you can always recycle the beads themselves if you don't mind trashing the thread. Thread, it turns out, is the least of it. 

The red and green are so rich, jeweltones that sing. The silver is just present enough to complement, not overwhelm the colors. It will be beautiful when it's done. I'm glad I didn't try to rush something to make the deadline for the challenge.

Perhaps someone will be longing for a Christmas necklace when I get it done and listed.