Herringbone Stitch Pendant Idea For Bezeled Rivoli

Is there a free-form herringbone technique? Even if it is not, I used it to make this pendant.

The Design Idea

My idea revolved around a 12 mm Swarovski Rivoli element. The challenge was to create a free-form movement out of the herringbone stitched elements. I wanted them to be non-symmetrical but balanced enough to keep Rivoli as a center of the composition.

Beads and Components

I started with a 12 mm Rivoli. It seems like a perfect size to design around. It is relatively small and gives you room to add more details without inflating the whole composition to a size that it unlikely for a fine jewelry accessory.

I bezeled a Rivoli using peyote stitch and Delica beads. If you would like to learn how to do that, follow this free tutorial:

12 mm Round Rivoli Bezel Tutorial

I used Delica beads for the bezel, flat herringbone elements and partially for the tubular herringbone rope piece. In addition to Delica, I used Diamon Duo two-hole beads in the flat herringbone stitch elements.

I used Japanese seed beads for half of the herringbone rope – one side of it is pearl-white.

Even though the Rivoli is the center of this pendant, I find that adding two large freshwater pearls was crucial for this particular design. Without them, the pendant would look dull and boring. The shape of the pearls also adds some freedom to the movement.

The Stitches and Techniques

At first, I tried to design a flat herringbone element with a Diamond Duo bead. After making the fifth element, I realized I couldn’t find an optimal thread path to repeat this process. So using a ton of them for the design was out of the picture.

Therefore I decided to keep only three elements. They were supposed to balance my next idea – a twisted herringbone cord.

Incorporating all these elements into the pendant structure created the final design idea – a blingy center, a snaky two-sided rope twisting around the focal point, three beaded elements adding some order into the composition and pearls balancing the whole composition.