DIY Multi-Way Turquoise Necklace

As I mentioned in my "Christmas Do's and Don'ts" post, I made quite a few turquoise necklaces as gifts this Christmas.  My inspiration for these necklaces was from a site I saw on Pinterest: Mama Says Sew.  I did make a couple of necklaces almost exactly as directed on this great tutorial, as shown here:

But I didn't think everyone would like this style, so I also made a simpler style for some that looked like this:

I mailed off my first three or four necklaces and took a break, as working with seed beads can try one's patience.  Especially someone like me, who lacks patience in an almost embarrassing way.

With Christmas only one week away, I still needed to make five more necklaces.  At that point, it dawned on me that I could design a necklace that could be worn both of the ways shown above, as well as a variety of other ways.

The original necklace from Mama Says Sew is constructed of two sets of eight strings of beads, tied off at the end:

You then tied the strands in a Carrick Bend knot, twist the ends and attach your clasps.  This makes an awesome necklace.  Here is one of the ones I made in that style:

I took this idea one step further and instead of permanently attaching each set of beads to a clasp, I put small clasps at the end of each group of eight strands:

I then attached those strands to a larger clasp.

This allowed me to configure the two bead sets however I wanted.  You simply detach each set from the larger clasp, create your desired look and reattach to the larger clasp.  You can configure as a messy bunch of beads or in a Carrick Bend knot, as shown above.  Or, in a simple twist:

The two sets tied in a single knot shortens the necklace and makes a cute choker:

I am sure there are lots of other options as well, but I chose these four to share as ideas with the recipients of the necklaces.  I drew an example of each style on a card that was included with the necklace.  At some point, I will definitely be making one for myself...

Doing that many was a lot of work, but I don't think I would have discovered this fun way to make the necklace work multiple ways if I hadn't made so many of them!  Perhaps I should change this to a Christmas "Do"...