Mum has had this case of broken vintage jewelry forever, it is in an old musical instrument case that belonged to a great grand parent, apparently the contents are from my dad’s side of the family, some quite old imitation pearls, glass beads, including two three strand cream-beige pearl necklaces.
This one, above, is a single strand choker imitation pearl necklace, with a break close to the clasp. There were several cards of pearl thread, like these:
So I had to give it a go. I grabbed my sewign case for my stitch ripper, and set to. I found that there was a tiny coiled wire, less than one millimeter wound around the thread on either side of the clasp.
Oh my gawd, I had to re-thread that! Not as tricky as it looks.
I cut the thread between each pearl with my stitch ripper, they were threaded and knotted between each bead. Then, rethreaded the wound wire spring at the clasp, then set to re-beading, and knotting at each interval.
Which took a while, but was worth it.
Maybe I’ll get on to this one next time…
Then again there are all of these, and two of the three strand pearls need similar repairs….
mermaids purse 