Fall-Winter 2009 Color Report

The Fall-Winter 2009 Color Report for Bead & Jewelry Designers by Margie Deeb is now available on-line. Yipee!!!

It actually came out last week, but this is the first chance that I've had to tell you about it.

Twice a year Margie releases reports based on the 10 colors predicted by global color authority Pantone to be popular in fashion and home decor for the Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter seasons.

She brings these colors into the bead world by matching each Pantone color with a corresponding Delica, Swarovski crystal, and gemstone bead, then inviting several guest artist to create jewelry based on combinations of these colors.

The combinations and proportions that she suggests for each of the ten colors are inspirational and challenging. She even "double-dog" dares you to try some of her palettes!

Warm Olive, described as "adding a touch of elegance and sophistication to fall." is the color that I chose to work with. I paired it with hints of Rapture Rose and American Beauty. You can read more about the necklace, "Pandora", that I created just for this report in my August 29th blog post.

This season's contributing artists are: Chrissie Day, Jamie Cloud Eakin, Candace Cloud McLean, Derralynn McMaster, Maureen Buckley McRorie, and Kristy Nijenkamp,

I am pleased and honored to have been a part of these color reports from the beginning and I'm already working on my projects for the Spring-Summer 2010 season. My colors have been selected and the palettes have been put together; a little bit of bead hunting and I'll be ready!

Color Report Project-Pandora

I am pleased to present to you Pandora. She is one of four projects that I created for Margie Deeb's Color Report.

I found the lovely chartreuse green & rose pink polymer clay face cabachon, made by Jen Martin, on Etsy and was the only thing I actually purchased for this particular color report.

For Margie's color reports I challenge myself in two ways. The first is to work with some unusual color combinations, and the second is to use only the materials that I have on hand.

I used variations of peyote stitch for the bezel around the face cab & for the necklace bail, which is embellished with 4mm aqua brandy Swarovski bicones. Her pendant is made of components from the La Boquita necklace kit that I bought from Marcia DeCoster.

Beading and embellishing the face cab was easy. Using olive, chartreuse, rose pink, and deep rich red together makes a dramatic color statement so I deliberately kept the pendant simple to keep the whole piece from becoming garish.

It was the neck strap that gave me fits. My first thought was to use tubular right angle weave with 11'0 triangles, but upon checking my inventory I saw that I didn't have enough of the colors that I had decided to work with, so I scrapped that idea. Next I tried tubular herringbone which looked too industrial, a thin strip of flat right angle weave looked too insignificant, and tubular right angle weave with only seed beads looked too bland.

As a last resort I decided to try a spiral rope and the success was immediate! Normally I dismiss spiral ropes, even if they are heavily embellished with crystals, as being too simple. But simple elegance is exactly what was needed.

So, in my quest to produce more complicated and intricate bead art I've learned a valuable lesson in that simple can sometimes be better. And in some cases "simple" can be more difficult to produce.

Moving on......

Why the name Pandora?

My first choice was Endora in honor of the hilariously meddling mother-in-law from "Bewitched" that was originally created by the superb character actress Agnes Moorehead, who named her character after the biblical Witch of Endor. But, then I found out that Endora means "fountain". A witch as a fountain of knowledge certainly makes sense but I see a different palette of colors for "fountain".

After Endora on the list of name definitions that I was looking at I saw Pandora, which means "all gifted" or "talented one". Being aware of the myth of Pandora and her infamous box I chose the name anyway because along with all the nastiness that she unleashed so found the strength to nurture hope.

I apologize for the lousy image. After Margie photographs this and send me a better pic I will post it.