Some pieces start with a stone. This one started with a decision I almost got wrong.
I had black and yellow laid out on the table. It's a strong combination, no question, and I kept coming back to it. But every time I looked at it I saw something loud. Something that would wear the person instead of the other way around. So I pulled the yellow and put salmon in its place, and the whole table changed.
Salmon is a warmer, quieter color than it sounds. Against black it doesn't shout, it glows. And the jasper I had, black and salmon running through the same beads, turned out to be exactly the bridge between the two. No bead in the strand is quite like its neighbor. The cream and salmon markings wander, and some beads are almost entirely dark while others are half sunset. That variation is the whole reason to use natural stone. If I wanted every bead identical I'd have bought plastic.
I strung it long, 26 inches, with no clasp at all. That was deliberate. A clasp is one more thing to fumble with behind your neck when you're already running late, and at this length it doesn't need one. It simply goes over your head and settles. The black onyx rounds give the strand weight so it hangs properly instead of riding up, and the faceted gold-tone spacers do something I didn't fully expect until I held it under a lamp: they catch light between every few stones, so the necklace moves even when you don't.
The front tapers into a Y, with a short drop that adds another two inches. That's the part I fussed over longest. A Y drop has to land right, and it took a few tries before the beads underneath sat the way I wanted. Matching earrings came after, repeating the same bead sequence on gold-plated hooks so the set reads as one idea rather than two.
Every bead in this one is new, hand-selected and strung one at a time. It's a single set. When it's gone, it's gone, because I couldn't reproduce that jasper variation even if I tried.
I'm glad I pulled the yellow.
See the Black & Salmon Jasper Y-Drop Necklace & Earring Set →