Whiskey and Pearls by Firelight

Long ago, when I was first married, I bought my husband a burgundy velvet smoking jacket at a thrift store. It was so elegant (I thought then; I wonder what I'd think now?), and I had visions of us in front of a fire in a cozy, book-filled library, crystal glasses full of whiskey in hand and some beautiful music in the background. The jacket is long gone (I wonder what happened to it?), we have a cozy book-filled room, but it is a dining room rather than a library, and there is no fireplace there. Plus, I never developed a taste for whiskey.

Yet, the other day when I went to my second favorite bead store, I saw some gorgeous facetted whiskey quartz nuggets. They were big, they were beautiful, they were very expensive. I fell in love. As luck had it (or fate?), I had to go to the mall where this bead store is located again this weekend, to provide fashion advice for my husband as he bought some shoes and pants he needed for a trip to Latin America. Well, the pants needed to be hemmed, the shoes were expensive....so I had time on my hands and a husband feeling guilty for spending so much money on shoes. I said I wanted to go to the bead store while we waited for the tailor to finish and, lo and behold, that strand of whiskey quartz stones was still there, beckoning. Did you buy it, you ask? Of course I did! I know that two wrongs don't make a balanced household budget, but he felt guilty: I knew he would be relieved that he wasn't the only one spending too much money. The way I see it is that, by buying that glorious strand, I alleviated his feelings of guilt. Now, isn't that a perfect wifely thing to do?

So, they are now mine! All mine! I carefully examined them, found the most perfect of all these perfect stones, and set to work. The whiskey quartz is so gorgeous that I decided to pull out all the stops: nothing less than crystal and pearls. I found some beautiful, facetted potato pearls whose lustre encompasses the gorgeous warm, tawny color of the whiskey quartz. I had a stash of Swarovski bicones of a perfect, neutral, light topaz color that provided just the right sparkle, like firelight reflecting off a cut-crystal glass. I finished it off with a handmade clasp with a spiral shape that echoed the spiral lines on some additional pearls I added, and a chain that makes this necklace adjustable from 16-20 inches (42-52 cm). In this necklace, I recreated that long ago vision of an elegant evening with crystal and whiskey and pearls in front of a fire. Now, how perfect is that?