Color for My Mother

My mother has an awesome sense of color, and I'm not the only one who thinks so ... a number of decorating magazines over the years have been delighted to photograph her homes! Anyone who has looked at the pictures on this blog knows that I really like to play with color and mix it and generally enjoy myself with it - that all comes from my mother. So this necklace is for her ...

Here is that pile of rectangle beads in all sorts of colors that showed up at the beginning of the month. It took time to sort all those beads out, and these kept calling my name. I took the pile and sorted all the beads into color families, and there were enough for two necklaces, so I divided each family in half and started to work with the two groups. I like this kind of project - the distribution of colors, which I have no control over, helps to give structure to the project. And this project was going to be one necklace for my mother and one for me, related but not identical. Each necklace is over 60" long, meaning that it can be worn doubled or tripled. (In my younger days, I never wore shorter necklaces, and in my older days, I often do.)



  

This version of the necklace takes the color families and keeps them together in blocks. The look is not the same doubled and tripled, because the color blocks fall differently. Between the rectangle beads are golden seed beads.

  

This version of the necklace mixes the colors randomly (well, not completely randomly - random looks better with a little structure). The look is pretty much the same doubled and tripled. Between the rectangle beads are silvery seed beads.

As I was beading these necklaces, I had time to think about my mother and color. When I was a kid, my bedroom was a pale green called celery - I really did not like it (although I loved my dust ruffles, which were dark olive green with dark pink in the box pleats). My bedroom is due to be painted this year, and 40 years later, celery is looking like my first choice. My mother is usually about five years ahead of fashion in color, but I'm a slow learner about some things ...

I think I know which necklace my mother will choose ... I've already put her preferred clasp on it, so we'll see if I'm right!!