Gearing up for a Hop!

I've been doing lots of scheming and plotting about what to do for our upcoming Beading Back in Time Blog Hop which has led to countless hours of reading about the early history of man and quite a few hours digging through my stash of treasures.  I came across this ceramic owl pendant from Karen Totten of Starry Road Studio.  It's one of her owl amulets from a series she called her woodland totems.

Although animals were featured in art very early on, I think it is the hand print on this one that makes me think of our hop challenge theme.  It reminds me of the cave paintings featuring hands.

I also came across another ceramic piece from Starry Road Studio - a round bead that matched the pendant perfectly.  Taking my color cues from those pieces, I knotted turquoise, gold and ecru into a cord/strap for the necklace. I used this technique (that links to the free macrame tutorial) that looks like kumihimo, but is done without a disk.  I love the look of the cord - slap a couple of caps on the ends and it's neat and tidy and can be made in any color combination.

Any bail would work on this cord, but I thought I'd take the design a step further, so I knotted one myself in the same cord.  It has a sort of fun plaid design in micro macrame and is completely integrated into the design (the same cord that ties on the pendant and goes up through the bead is knotted through the bail.

And yes, I should be working on my piece for the hop rather than getting sidetracked, but what a nice sidetrack, huh?  And if you're not inclined to make your own, you can purchase this one in my Etsy shop:  Knot Just Macrame.