Here's a little indulgence to cheer myself up at the end of the week. I picked these cultured freshwater pearls up from Aliexpress for a few dollars when I was shopping for components for a wearables project last month. These beads won't be winning any awards for quality but they are shiny and the colors are pretty :) I pulled the silk cord and a toggle clasp from my beading stash.
I like to knot in between each pearl so that if the silk breaks, at most one bead will get away. I also like the look of the knots between the beads, so I've chosen a deep purple silk to contrast with the muted pastels of the pearls.
This silk cord comes with a twisted wire needle attached, so all I have to do is unwrap the silk and tie one end of the clasp onto the very end of the cord and thread the pearls onto the silk. I've sorted the pearls so that the ones with the most obvious defects will go at the ends of the necklace, and the better ones will go in the middle where they are most visible. I usually hang pearls on silk cord to stretch it overnight but I am too impatient to do that tonight, so I stretch the silk as I go by pulling it taught in small stretches.
Then I go along and tie an overhand knot in between each pearl, using a point to push the knot down close to the pearl (a header pin, awl or paperclip works well for this). Once all the pearls are knotted, I tie the other end of the clasp on, dab some super glue on the knots on either end and trim the excess silk. The remaining silk gets wrapped back onto its card - there should be enough left over to string another necklace some other time.