Limpet Locket with Pearls

A polished limpet shell made into a locket. The limpet has been cleaned and polished to a soft glow, the colours are creamy golden yellow fading to almost white in the centre. The shell has been fixed to a backing by sewing rows of beads in gradually smaller sizes around it until they cover the lower edge firmly, a pice of thin metal is then placed on the backing, bothe the metal and the backing have holes in them to accomodate the locket frame. A layer of fine leather is then fied onto the backing layers, a final row of beads, fixes the interfacing, backing layer to the leather with the metal sandwiched between. The frame is fixed in place using fine copper wire stitching. Another row of beads finishes the edge of the mount and a row of small, three bead, picots adds a decorative edge. The locket has six loops of these same beads at the top to hang it and 7 strings of beads, getting gradually longer to the centre, are fixed to 7 of the picots at the lower edge, 6 strings have a small baroque pearl at the end and the central one has a mother of pearl drop. The locket is hung on a hand made silver wire torc, fastened with a hook at each end. The wire torc measures approximately 45cm and the locket is 8.5cm long, including the bead strings and 5.5cm wide.