Celtic crosses are synonymous with Ireland and Irish jewelry. I've been doing some research into these historic stone carved crosses to get some inspiration for a new piece I'm designing. While we have this Silver Celtic Cross for ladies on our online shop, I'd been planning on designing this Celtic Cross Necklace for men for quite some time.
Before I began, I visited a number of Irish standing stones around Ireland and much of my inspiration has been taken from that trip. I knew I wanted to retain the classic shape of the Celtic cross as I love how the circle and the cross tie in so nicely together. I especially like the subtle details of the rounded cut-outs on the axis of the cross and the way it tapers in width, both elements I thought important to keep in the final design. So I have the basic shape...where do I go from here? Well my next step was to look at the various finishes and decorations. The traditional Celtic crosses are heavily embellished so I knew I needed to capture this Celtic knot work detail on a smaller scale! I thought that by simplifying the design, the Celtic knotwork would work better on this Celtic pendant and so the magnificence of the original design could be fully appreciated. As you may already know, Celtic interlacing is full of symbolism and is often said to represents the circle of life.
I tied elements together to create a Celtic knot around the entire cross, stemming from the simple Celtic circular symbol at the centre. The design echoes the circle surrounding the cross encompassing the meaning of the Celtic knot. There really was a lot of symbolism to fit in 32mm :)
Design: Celtic Cross Pendant
Here are some of my early sketches. You will see I was kept busy in the workshop making these in sterling silver and tweaking the design. I usually will make some changes as I translate from design sketched into silver.
Crafting: Celtic Cross Pendant
I began by making the circle for the centre of the cross. I could then cut this into sections to place around the middle section of cross. I did this in parts in order to have it sitting slightly higher than the circle detail. A slow process but well worth it I hope you will agree!
Once I began fitting in the sections, I numbered each piece so that when it came to soldering they sit together perfectly.
Final Design: Our Celtic Cross
So if you haven't checked it out above already, you can see the finished Celtic Cross Pendant for men here!