Red and Navy

My sister-in-law requested a necklace. A navy necklace, with pops of bright red and blue. Since we live 400 miles apart, I sent her a link to Interweave’s e-patterns to give me an idea of what style she had in mind, and was not a bit surprised that she chose Shelley Nybakke’s Egyptian collar.



The design is elegant: right angle weave rectangles that transform from silky fabric to structural domes as layers are added. The original design uses metal seed beads embellished with cornerless cubes, which I’ll replace with firepolished beads or crystals. The rectangles are connected with graduated loops of beads. The hard part was locating navy seed beads. Finding none in my local bead stores, I ordered samples online, but the sheer intensity and range of navy made it difficult to choose just one. So I stitched up sample components in three shades for Jennifer to choose.



Shades of navy, from left: metallic navy, navy lustre and dark blue lustre.


While I’m waiting for her decision, enjoy this sampling of red on navy from Etsy.