Cerulean
The less commonly known semi-precious stone duomortierite, is the star in this 47.5 cm necklace, in 18 and 20mm round beads, supported by some vintage Italian metallised plastic beads, and small silver spacers. For more info on the necklace, please click on Details, and if interested in my musings, please go to Story.
The identification of the beads start from the bead in the centre, moving upwards, with measurement for some of the bigger beads, with metal beads named last.
Length: 47.5 cm (18.5”)
Weight: 142 gms
Dumortierite 20 mm and 18 mm
Bigger patterned metallised plastic: 18mm
Smaller grooved metallised plastic: 13mm
Silver spacers
Sterling silver crimp tubes
Silver toggle clasp
I am glad that I ‘stockpiled’ some of the semi-precious stone beads over the last few decades. You don’t see some of the stones in beads around anymore, and even when you do, not in the bigger sizes that I prefer to design with.The dumortierite (often just referred to as ‘blue quartz’) in this necklace is one such stone – I don’t think that I could get them again in the 18- and 20-mm beads that I use in this necklace. In fact I don’t see them at all in the bead shops in Bangkok
I love the mottled quality of the muted blue, with patches of white, and the occasional bands of a deeper blue. Note that the 20mm and the 18mm beads are somewhat different in colouring. As I did not want to dilute the concentration of the blueness, I kept the design simple, highlighting these big beads with metal beads. To keep it from being too heavy however, I drew on my stock of ‘vintage’ metallised plastic beads (vintage as I have had them for some twenty years and more now). These are probably Italian in origin.
I picked on the bigger oxidized-silver looking ones to space out the 20mm beads, and a smaller one to separate the 18mm ones. A brighter metallised bead would have overwhelmed the gentler blue of the dumortierite. Please note that the big metallised plastic beads are deliberately ‘antiqued’ to look old and worn.
I am keeping the name simple too. I call it Cerulean, to reflect its colour. It is not the brighter cerulean that you may associate with the colour, but it is a shade of cerulean. What can you wear this necklace with? The lighter and paler shades of blue and green certainly, creams, beiges, off-whites, but out of curiosity, I placed it against a bright fuchsia top, and it worked too! Experiment!
