Year of Jewelry Project - Week 1

One of the challenges I'm undertaking this year is the Year of Jewelry Project, a Facebook group where participants commit to creating a piece of jewelry weekly and posting it to the Facebook page and their individual blogs.

The prompt for Week 1 was Something New for Me, trying a new technique, or an old technique in a new way. I stitched up a pair of right angle weave earrings (old technique) with a (new-to-me) seed bead shape, farfalle beads. The pattern is from Maggie Roschyk's Artistic Seed Bead Jewelry, and I will be coming back to these peanut-shaped beads for more experimentation!

I picked up that hank of Czech farfalle beads at a recent bead show because their transparent, lustered finish combined two colors on Pantone's Spring Color Report.  The center of each seed bead is Violet Tulip, and the edges twinkle with Radiant Orchid, the Color of the Year for 2014. I finished the design with blackberry and pink-hued pearls and a touch of Vitrail and Indian Pink crystals.

Not daring enough (yet!) to try the full-hue exuberance of Radiant Orchid in a dress or a sweater, it's going to be a fun new shade to use in my jewelry designs! At first I thought I had very little of this year's signature color in my studio, but as I was putting away this project, I noticed pops of it on my bead tray - in my glasses and scissors!

Where are you seeing Radiant Orchid?