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Beaded Handmade Jewelry for Virtue and PurityBeaded handmade jewelry with a violet sparkle! Amethyst has long been used as a favorite gemstone in jewelry making. It was a favored gem by royalty because purple is regarded as a regal hue.
In ancient Greece amethyst cups were used to drink wine because it was believed to guard against drunkenness. Bonewtiz, (2005:223) explains that:
Diana came to her rescue, transforming Amethyst into white quartz. Overcome with remorse, Dionysus shed tears into his goblet of red wine. Some of the wine spilled, running into the white stone, which absorbed its color creating the stone amethyst”. 
Brazil is a major commercial source of amethyst. It is usually found where granite rocks are exposed on the earth’s surface, but can also be found in alluvial deposits and geodes. There are famous amethyst geodes from Brazil which can be human-sized!
Electrical properties of amethystAmethyst and citrine can sometimes occur naturally in the same stone. Such a specimen is called ametrine.
The most valued shades of amethyst are a deep, rich purple with a red tint. They are usually cut and faceted but can also be used as a cabochon and some people (me included!) use the uncut prismatic crystal as a pendant to balance the body’s energy. Think it’s exageration or myth? Think again. Quartz has piezoelectrical properties. If you look it up at Wikipedia it says: “Piezoelectricity is the ability of some materials to generate an electric potential. (…) The first demonstration of the direct piezoelectric effect was in 1880 by the brothers Pierre Curie and Jacques Curie. They combined their knowledge of pyroelectricity with their understanding of the underlying crystal structures that gave rise to pyroelectricity to predict crystal behavior, and demonstrated the effect using crystals of tourmaline, quartz, topaz, cane sugar, and Rochelle salt”. Applications of piezoelectricity include: high voltage and power sources, sensors, actuators and frequency standard. Wikipedia says about the latter: “The piezoelectrical properties of quartz are useful as standard of frequency. Quartz clocks employ a tuning fork made from quartz that uses a combination of both direct and converse piezoelectricity to generate a regularly timed series of electrical pulses that is used to mark time. The quartz crystal (like any elastic material) has a precisely defined natural frequency (caused by its shape and size) at which it prefers to oscillate, and this is used to stabilize the frequency of a periodic voltage applied to the crystal”. Isn’t that marvelous? Amethyst, or any quartz crystal, can really regularize your biorhythm. I try to wear mine every day, I love it. Wear amethyst beaded handmade jewelry for your health.
See this step-by-step project to make an amethys necklace with silver flowers.
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Amethyst comes from the Greek name amethustos. They had a funny story behind the stone’s origin. 
