I went over the Dutch Spiral technique briefly in my Ruffles & Curls feature but there seems to be a lot of interest in this technique lately so here's a full project using Dutch Spiral.

What You'll Need

• 8 ceramic tube beads. Dark blue with peach & medium blue flowers. They are about 3/5 of an inch long by 1/4 of an inch wide.
  
• 10 round 6mm transparent peach beads
• 1 hank size 10 sapphire satin seeds
• 1 vial size 8 silver-lined teal delicas
• Several strands each of light blue matte transparent (you might want to try substituting peach for these), silver-lined blue, and silver-lined purple size 11 seeds (I used delicas for the purple)
• Sterling ring and bar clasp (aka toggle clasp)
• 1 yard Softflex™ wire
• size D Nymo beading thread
• size 12 beading needle
• 4 silver crimp beads
• flat-nosed or crimping pliers

We will begin by constructing the spiral portion of the necklace. Pick up 1 teal, 2 light blue matte, 1 silver-lined blue, 1 purple, and 2 sapphire satin and tie them in a circle. Continue through the teal bead.



For the second row, we will add one bead in between each of the first 5 beads and 4 between the 5th bead of the base row and the first bead of the new row. Pick up one teal and go through the first of the two blue mattes. Pick up a blue matte and go through the second blue matte in the base row. Pick up another blue matte and go through the silver-lined blue. Pick up a silver-lined blue and go through the purple. Then pick up 1 purple and 3 sapphire satin and go through the first teal bead you added. You'll note that the first bead you pick up is always the same color as the bead your thread is coming out of; remembering this is a big help in keeping your place.



From the third row on, the method is basically the same as odd-count tubular peyote. For the third row, pick up a teal bead and go through the first blue matte in the previous row. Then pick up a blue matte and go through the second blue matte. Pick up another blue matte and go through the silver-lined blue. Then pick up a silver-lined blue and go through the purple. Finally, pick up one purple and 4 sapphire satin and go through the teal bead you started the row with.



Each subsequent row is constructed the same way with the exception of the number of sapphire satin beads used in each final stitch. The number of these should be increased by one in each row until you reach 18. From that point on, use 18 sapphire satin in each row until you reach a length of about 8 1/2 inches. At that point you should begin decreasing the number of sapphire satin beads by one for each row until you get back to 2. When you reach the final row, tighten it up by going through only the beads added in that row a couple of extra times. Weave your thread back into the work and snip.

Now we'll add the rest of the necklace. Take your wire and cut it in half. Take one piece and thread one crimp bead, one peach bead, and one satin sapphire. Skip the satin and go up through the peach bead and the crimp. Go past the crimp by an inch or so. Then use flat-nosed pliers (or crimping pliers if you have them) to squash the crimp bead tightly.



Now thread the other end of the wire through the end of the finished spiral. Pull it up tight so that the peach bead is hidden inside the spiral.



Now pick up one ceramic tube, one peach bead, one tube, one peach, 1 tube, 1 peach, 1 tube, 1 peach, and 20 teal. Add a crimp bead and one side of your clasp. Skip the clasp and go down through the crimp bead and the teal beads. Tighten and crimp. Cut the wire just short of the top tube bead and slip it inside. Repeat this process with the other piece of wire and you are done. :-)