Mid-Week Mutterings - A New Lanyard + Kyanite and Vintage Swarovskis from The Beadin' Path

When I was in L.A. one of the strands of beads I bought was a set of glass coin beads in a light blue with subtle white stripes that reminds me of blue lace agate. I decided to make a new lanyard and strung it with light sapphire Druk beads and a matching light blue opaque Czech glass bead between 4mm scalloped Tierra Cast bead caps. Since it's a lanyard I put two lobster claw clasps on it and it's 29" long.

The next piece is a necklace, 24" long with a silver flower clasp. I noticed how well the kyanite beads I had also purchased in L.A. went with the Indian Sapphire vintage Swarovski Sunflower beads from The Beadin' Path, so I used some of those and matching Swarovski bicones. There are floral decorated Bali silver tube beads from the Rings & Things road show, silver disk spacers and Tierra Cast scalloped bead caps as well.

The Rings & Things Gemstone Index has fascinating historical information on this stone and notes that it is also "widely used for industrial applications, especially in the manufacture of spark plugs, electrical insulators and heat-resistant ceramic (to reduce shrinkage as it expands)." I particularly liked this part of the introductory sentence "kyanite can become the sparkle in a necklace or the spark plug in an engine." I could use some spark right about now!

I'm working on something with the charoite and peach sunstones right now, hope to be able to share it soon!