Crocheted Leaf Pendant

Every year when the spring is near I start thinking of green leaves and flowering trees. And then of course I want to celebrate the fresh feeling of the coming spring by expressing it in a new design. Last year it was the Green Spring Bag, and this year it's the Leaf Pendant, my last creation. I came up with it quite unexpectedly. It was supposed to be a practice piece in incorporating leaves into a bead crocheted strip. While working on it, I thought the technique could be used for making leaf pendants, and then I realized that I already had one.

All I needed to do is to add straps, thin straps that would not overpower the focal piece. Tatted chains with smaller beads seemed like a good idea. Though I spent several hours trying to figure out how to invisibly conceal nylon threads inside the thin tatted straps in order to finish the ends, I now have another basic strap design in my collection. It's really handy to know different kinds of cords and straps, as you have more styles and techniques to choose from in a specific situation. For example, different techniques, e.g. crochet, tatting, kumihimo, etc., require different number of threads and ways of manipulation, and depending on how many ends you already have in a yet unfinished piece or how many you would need to conceal you may prefer one or another purely from technical considerations. Or you may want to choose one method or another because of a particular look and feel.