Fox Terrier Necklace

ERGH! Fail. Between chronic pain and the flu I missed the wooden wearables by mere hours! Oh well. Hope you all enjoy the necklace anyhow!

I made this for my aunt for Christmas this year. I wear my own schnauzer one daily. It’s just my style, simple, easy, and goes with everything, dressed up or down! I made this for my aunt as she’s shown fox terriers as long as I’ve been alive. I know she’s appreciate a larger, louder sort of piece, but as she’s been struggling with her health and working her way through chemo, I wanted something she could wear easily with anything, even a hospital gown.

I drew up the pattern by tracing over a photograph of a wire fox terrier. The pieces are cut on my scroll saw, assembled into a rectangle, and the outline cut is the final cut to shape the necklace out of what looks at first like a random scramble of woods on a backer board. I have used 1/8 inch walnut as a backer and the design on the front of the dog is made from birdseye maple, mahogany, and indian laurel, all 1/4 inch thick.

The necklace has a different way to join the wood to the chain, an experiment that I’m so happy with I will start doing this on all my scroll saw necklaces! Instead of drilling a hole through the pendant and using a wire or metal bail to hang it, I drilled a hole from the top into the dog. Then I glued in a silver eye pin cut to an appropriate length. This way, the attachment to the necklace doesn’t detract from the dog as I feel it does on the necklaces using a larger store-bought metal bail. This pieces lets the focus stay right where it belongs, on my itty bitty intarsia work.

Since the piece will be worn directly against the skin, I used my favorite finish, a perfect blend of food-grade mineral oil and beeswax. I hate the idea of wearing a toxic finish against my skin, and certainly don’t want someone already struggling so to react to chemicals in any other finish. With my schnauzer necklace, I find the more I wear it, the nicer it looks too since it absorbs the natural oils from my skin as well!

-- -Kim, Peyton, CO