This is a half mala (54 beads) with a somewhat non-traditional construction: traditionally, the counting beads are of the same material, but I loved the combo of bayong and dumortierite and wanted to have more dumortierite beads in this, so I used it for the first 7 counting beads on both sides of the guru and left out the markers. Also, I used a dumortierite pendant instead of a tassel. All in all, I think it works quite well, and this is one of my personal favourites 💙. This is a non-stretchy mala; one of the pics shows the small extra space left in the loop to allow for the movement of the counting beads.
Materials:
Counting beads: 8 mm, 40 bayong, 14 dumortierite
Guru bead: 10 mm, bayong
The flat half-way marker and decorative extra beads: 5 mm, silver
JUZU-INSPIRED HALF MALA IN BAYONG AND HUANGLONG JADE
This mala was made as a small surprise gift for a friend, inspired by the Japanese Buddhist juzu prayer beads.
Materials used:
54 counting beads: bayong, 8 mm
guru bead: bayong, 10 mm
two marker beads: huanglong jade, 6 mm
the flat half-way marker and two decorative beads flanking the guru: silver, 5 mm
the additional focal bead: huanglong jade, 12 mm
(an additional 6 mm bayong bead)
the decorative 6 mm 出入平安 silver bead
waxed 0.7 mm cotton string, yellow and grey, about 2.5 m each
beading elastic (Opelon Stretch Jewelry Fiber), flat 0.7 mm, doubled
Explanations below the cut 🙂.
This is a half-mala, with 54 beads of bayong (8 mm) for the counting or main beads (called kodama, "child beads", or judama, "retainer beads"). I made the guru bead (oyadama, "parent bead"), from a 10 mm bead of bayong by drilling the third hole for pulling through the two ends of the string (elastic) of the loop.
The half-point of the mala is marked with a flat 5 mm silver bead, and similar ones are used to flank the oyadama.
I used 6 mm beads of yellow huanglong jade for the two marker beads, placed after the seventh counting bead on both sides of the oyadama. In a full japanese 108 mala, there would typically be four of them, called shiten ("four point beads") placed after the seventh and 21st counting beads, but it is quite common to use only two markers in shorter malas.
I started off the pendant with three additional beads: a decorative focal of 12 mm huanglong jade, an addional 8 mm bayong bead I used to hide the knot of the elastic and the attachment of the tassel (I enlarged the hole in the bead to accommodate those), and a talismanic 6 mm silver bead.
The silver bead has stamped Chinese characters 出入平安 (chūrùpíng'an), meaning "peace wherever you go".
This was the first time I made this type of knotted tassel for a mala. They are typically made using silk string, two strings of each colour used, but I did not have any, so I used waxed cotton string instead. Yellow, to go with the Huanglong jade (and because it is my friend's favourite colour) and grey, because I think it fits the piece nicely.
Also, my string was relatively thin, 0.7 mm, so I ended up using four strings of each colour to get the thickness I wanted. The string was quite stiff and it turned out to be quite a challenge to keep the strings from crossing each other, and I missed a spot or two (one is visible in the closeup picture above), but I'm quite happy with the end result anyway. I'll probably try wetting the string beforehand next time.
