Lapis Lazuli & Tiger Eye Tassel Necklace

This tutorial is mostly about making a simple tassel from nylon cord. It is a very basic tassel that takes next to no time or skill to make. You can make them as large or small as you like - this one is relatively small at about 60mm, and is not super thick. Of course you can use more cord and make it as thick as you like!

The necklace, otherwise, is simply strung on tigertail. All up this design took less than an hour. We would often knot between each gemstone bead with this style of necklace, but by using tiny 15/0 seed beads we get the same effect with a lot less effort (and time, yay!). I couldn't resist these gorgeous ceramic shell pendants as a feature - and they were of course the inspiration for the colours in the necklace. The deep royal blue of Lapis Lazuli and shimmery brown/gold of Tiger Eye went perfectly.

• 54x 8mm Rondelle Gemstone Beads (you could also use rounds or nuggets; we've used Lapis Lazuli)
• 44x 8mm Round Gemstone Beads (just less than one strand; we’ve used Tiger Eye)
• 3x Slightly Larger Gemstone Beads (we've used a 12mm Lapis Lazuli Rondelle).
• 16x 4mm Gemstone Round Beads (we've used Lapis Lazuli)
• Feature Bead or Pendant (we've used beautiful Ceramic Shells. They are approx. 40mm tall so anything about that size would work).
• 6x Silver Toned Spacer Beads (daisy spacers or rondelles will work, as well bead caps. We've used 8mm silver rondelle spacers).
• Approx. 4 meters 0.8mm Nylon Cord (we've used royal blue nylon)
• Size 15/0 Seed Beads. Choose a colour to match – we used black 15/0 seed beads.
• Clasp of your choice
• 2x Crimps
• 2x clamshells (or you can just use the crimps, but I like the neat look of clamshells).
• Tiger Tail (we used 0.45mm)

First off, we are going to make the tassel. Cut 3 pieces of 0.8mm nylon cord: one 3 meters, one about 15cm, and one about 1 meter. Take your 3 meters of cord, and wrap them into a circle. I have simply used four fingers to get the size I am after.

Take the cord off your fingers, and using your 15cm piece of cord tie together one end. This just makes the whole thing easier to work with.

Now take the 1 meter piece of cord and tie around the entire tassel, near the top that you have just tied off. Leave a tail of about 10cm one one side, with the remaining 90cm of cord on the other. Then, wrap the long piece around and around the tassel until it looks good – you may not use the entire 1 meter.

Now, tie a tight know using the shorter tail from before and the remaining cord from your wraps. Do a double knot, then trim with sharp scissors. Adding a dab of glue will help keep this knot secure. I also try to pull some of the wraps up and over the knot to conceal it a little, but this isn’t totally necessary.

Using sharp scissors, cut the loops at the bottom of your tassel to turn it into a tassel! You will probably also need to trim the bottom to make a uniform tassel.

And that’s the tassel made! I will often remove the original string I used to tie the tassel together at the top (and I did so in this design). In some situations, you make like to leave it on as you can use it to tie the tassel onto a necklace or loop.

Now it’s time to string together the necklace. This one’s pretty easy! Simply string all of your beads onto the tigertail in your desired pattern, using a 15/0 seed bead as a spacer between each bead. Don’t forget to add the pendant when you get to the middle point! The pattern for this design is (from the clasp):

7x 4mm Lapis Lazuli Rounds – 12x Lapis Lazuli Rondelles – 11x 8mm Tiger Eye Rounds – 5x Lapis Lazuli Rondelles – 1x Silver Spacer – 1x Lapis Large Rondelle – 1x Silver Spacer – 5x Lapis Lazuli Rondelles – 11x 8mm Tiger Eye Rounds – 5x Lapis Lazuli Rondelles – 1x 4mm Lapis Lazuli Round – then we go down through a silver spacer, a large lapis rondelle, a silver spacer, the ceramic shell, through the tassel and back up again through these same beads (see the photos below) – then do the other side of the necklace as you have just done.

Go down through the feature bead and through the tassel.

Then, go back up through the feature bead and also through the silver spacer, large rondelle and second silver spacer. Then start threading as usual.

Finish off your necklace using crimps, clamshells and the clasp of your choice. And that’s it!