Gold Medal Winner - Presidents Award

The lovely Lauren Butler who is the Gold Medal First prize winner of the 2011 Swarovski Elements Fire Mountain Beads & Gems (FMG) Contest, enlightened me earlier this week that my design 'Lashed Lily' had in fact won the Gold Medal Prize Winner - Presidents Award for the 2011 Swarovski Elements Design Contest held annually by Fire Mountain Beads & Gems.

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It was a very nice surprise.  My Aussie beading buddy, Noel Wyres scored bronze with her design 'Bouquet' so collectively the Australian's did very well in this contest.

Comments taken from the Fire Mountain Beads & Gems website from the President of FMG "Stuart, a trained aeronautics engineer, gravitated toward the gorgeous geometrics and cleverly hidden side clasp in Melissa Ingram’s Lashed Lily necklace. Melissa used tubular peyote stitch to construct the necklace body, then assembled the cascading centerpiece with mathematical precision".

Lashed Lily is a right angle woven (unlike FMG who refer to the stitch as peyote) necklace strap (beads over armature), the magnetic clasp is hidden in the necklace strap. However the focal resembles a toggle clasp which was created using the Swarovski Square Ring Article 4439 and two Swarosvki 'Lily Focal's' Article 6904 that I simply 'lashed' together to form the toggle part of the clasp, albeit a faux toggle clasp. The design focal is embellished with Swarovski pearls and bicones. The colour way is largely green and purple with matt sterling plated Toho seed beads forming most of the beadwork.

Happy Beading

Mel