Made a kitchen knife for my best friends mom about ten years ago that had an oosic handle and nickle silver bolsters. The polished oosic was striking, had a lot of blues and green. Smelled pretty bad on the belt sander, and the specimen I had contained a lot of waste material, I think I only got two sets of slab handles out of a 15" chunk. The core of oosic isn't extremely solid, so if you go for this option your going to have to figure out how to stabilize it.
Good luck, can't wait to see pictures.
Oh, she used the knife for a few years until Dave told her what the handles were made of, then it was returned for "sharpening"
Sar