craftgrrl | Necklace from found clay pipe parts

I spent Saturday washing the 16th century clay pipes we bought home from our last trip to London, found on the foreshore of the Thames around the Southbank.

The Museum of London has some lovely pages on the clay tobacco pipes found in the Thames here

. I wasn't lucky enough to find anything so complete as to include a makers mark or even any kind of bowl part, but we've said we'll get more next time - maybe I'll be more lucky then.

After washing them all off and getting years of clay, sediment and tobacco out & off of them, they looked like this:

Check out the awesome little-bit-of-spoon I found too - I shall definitely do something special with that one day.

Most of them are quite fine and white and bone-like, washed smooth by the tides...

So as I'd decided at the time of picking them up, I strung them into a necklace...

(Not a very good picture, I'm afraid, but all natural light had gone and my patience was on it's way out too.)

It includes some beads I've had for years, 'vintage' buttons i got for 'christmas' ....beads salvaged from jewellery I didn't like... it's very long - it goes 3 times around my neck and hangs nicely. It's quite heavy, but it's more like a reassuring weight that makes one think of quality rather than a milstone. It wasn't planned at all - i just got stuck in and threaded them on. I did try to pair the pipes with blue tones with silver or blue-toned beads & buttons and so on, but nothing too elaborate.

I'm pleased with it.