Pearls Before

My daughter has wonderful taste in socks.

She bought a pair of moccasins, somewhat low-cut and sock-exposing, searched every store reachable via car or internet, and declared that they were all quite awful and entirely unsuitable, and the only socks that would do were a pair of hand-knitted socks.

I am, if nothing else, vain and susceptible to flattery.

Two weeks later she has her socks.

As an aside because it bears mentioning Yet Again: Socks are a very quick project when they're one's main work in progress, rather than a half-a-needle-at-red-lights project. Normally socks take months and leave my car only for waiting rooms and upon completion.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm weak for pearls? Well I am.

In fact, one of the nudges that started me beading (again, some years after I, um, invented peyote stitch in high school) was pearls that my parents had given me for either my high school or undergraduate graduation that broke. I took them to be reknotted, all four strands of very tiny pearls, and the jeweller informed me that the cost to knot them was more than they were worth.

I loved the pearls, so I found a book and the Fire Mountain Gems catalogue and taught myself to knot pearls. It cost a few dollars for the silk, French wire, and twisted wire needles, and rather more dollars for the other beads in the catalogue whose allure I was unable to resist.

So, pearls: weak.

And big pearls? Very weak.

On the latest slide into pearls I made a pair of lusciously large earrings, but didn't have quite enough for a third beaded bead to be a pendant.

Fortunately I managed to find slightly smaller pearls in the same colour, so I could make a necklace to match the earrings. A bit arse-about-face I suppose, as most people start with the necklace and make earrings to match.

Whatever.

Then there were a whole lot more of the smaller pearls left over, so I made another pair of matching earrings.

I had to do something with them, after all, and not everyone wants huge pearl earrings (though I can't imagine why not).