pegkerr | Charm necklace

I love my new Elven leaf brooch, but my charm necklace is the most personal piece of jewelry that I own. Kij sent me a couple new charms to add this week. It occurs to me that I might describe the necklace for you. Eventually, I might take a picture, scan it and post it so you can see it.

elisem helped me design it.

The necklace is fashioned from three ribbons (black, metallic gold, and silver/gold) strung with silver and brass beads and braided together. Little silver and brass whatchamacallits with Celtic knots (can't remember the jeweler's term for them) are strung on the ribbons between the beads, and it is from these that the charms hang. There are also spacer beads with Celtic caps at regular intervals.

Anyway, the charms:

a bunny

a silver seagull and silver loon--I bought these on two separate summers when we went to Gull Lake, Minnesota for vacation

a charm that

elisem designed for The Wild Swans. It consists of a white rose carved from bone; below it hangs a claddagh charm, and eleven sterling silver feathers

a clear glass bead with delicate cobalt blue veins shot through it, mounted on another cobalt blue bead. The delicate blue lines make me think of writing, and it is a bead to honor my writing group

a pewter cartouche of my name in Egyptian hieroglyphics, which my mother-in-law brought me from Egypt

a gold charm that my parents gave me in honor of my first book Emerald House Rising. It is a gold house with a real emerald set in the door

two rings, one of hematite and one of thin 10k gold. These were my nursing rings, one for each of my girls--I would switch them from hand to hand to remind me of which "side" I had nursed last. Linked with these two rings is a little glass heart--which matches the glass hearts on my two daughters' charm necklaces that I have started for each of them

a little glass bottle of champagne stuck in a pewter "ice bucket" with glass ice cubes. Very lifelike. I got it at a doll house store and had a hole drilled in it and a jump ring added. Kij has one exactly like it on her charm necklace. We got them to commemorate our custom of having "tiddley pum nights" when we get together, splitting a magnum of champagne to toast our recent fiction sales

a gold stone bead. This was the first charm I used to start the necklace. Again, Kij has one exactly like it on her necklace. She had a charm necklace, and I wanted to get something to add to it, so I bought her the bead and she bought me this one so I could start my own.

a bear fetish made of petrified wood (millions of years old). I got it when Rob and I went to Arizona last year for our fifteenth anniversary. I had heard that the bear could be a symbol of power especially in the middle years of life.

my great grandfather's watch fob, a gold pendant showing two dragons back to back. His initials are on it (CAK for Charles Allen Kerr). This is the pendant which hangs at the bottom

two charms hung together. One was a clear stone (called an "Apache tear") that I glued to end cap and jump ring at the arts and craft room at the YMCA camp where I vacationed with my family at the age of ten. With it hangs a tiny leather circle with a Colorado columbine painted on it that I made in the arts and craft room at another YMCA camp I made when I went back to Colorado with my own family, thirty years later

a little fish charm I bought on the streets of Chinatown in New York when I went there for dim sum with my brother, years ago

a gold sailing medal my grandfather won at the Evanston yacht club. It is engraved with his name, Charles L. Floyd, and the year, 1954.

a pair of earrings glued back to back. They show a silver circle with a little mother-of-pearl blob near the top. I was told that I had miscarried in 1992, and I bought the earrings to make the charm as a memento for my lost baby. But I found out twelve days later that the doctors had been wrong--I was actually still pregnant. That "lost baby" turned out to be Fiona. Now I wear it in thanksgiving.

another pair of earrings, glued back to back, a pewter star with mother-of-pearl inlays. Rob bought them for me one time when we went to Valleyfair because we had been having a tough time, and we decided to treat ourself to a fun day. The star is a reference to my wedding proposal. On our first date, we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, and my fortune cookie said "You are the star of his existence." V. peculiar fortune. Two years later to the day, he took me back to the same restaurant, and when I opened my fortune cookie, it said, "You are the star of my existence. Will you marry me?"

a silver Celtic knot work ball, originally an earring. Kij has the other. We bought them when we went to the Renaissance Festival together

a jade leaf, in honor of my interest in environmental issues

a sterling silver mug that says "coffee"

a silver pillow bead--Kij has one like it

a cobalt blue and turquoise-colored bead, with the symbol for two women hanging from it. (Kij has one like it. The accents on her charm necklace are largely turquoise, and mine are cobalt blue)

a pewter street car, bought one summer afternoon when I went with my family to ride the Lake Harriet street car

a tiny brass owl, named Pigwigeon, in honor of my enjoyment of the Harry Potter books.

a clear crystal, which I bought when I went to Banff, Canada

The charms Kij sent me most recently are a coffee cup and a telephone, both sterling silver (we talk on the phone once a week on Sundays). I like to add charms, but not indiscriminately. I like it when people I love take the time to find something perfect to add. The necklace, as you can imagine, has gotten large and a bit heavy. It invariably draws impressed comments from people.

[Um . . . nearly went back and deleted this entire entry. Sudden intense worry that I have lost all perspective and am boring people. If so, sorry. Ate poorly tonight, prob. hypoglycemic, brain not working properly. Suppose I shouldn't worry--those too bored will have stopped reading by now, anyway. And will have missed this confused apology, too, come to think of it.]

Peg, mildly wibbling

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

...but I couldn't resist. Jewelry-making is a hobby of mine, and your description of your necklace is so finely-detailed I can almost see it. It sounds just lovely. And how wonderful that you and your friend share so many related charms.

BTW, the celtic-knot connectors on your necklace? I'm guessing they're probably either bails (pear-shaped loops with the narrow points down) or slides (round with a connecting loop at the bottom).

And while I'm here, I'll take the opportunity to say that I enjoy reading your journal entries.

I loved reading about your charm necklace - not only for the stories behind the various charms, but also your delightful descriptions. I suspect you could make vacuuming the house sound interesting *g*. I also have a charm bracelet, and too many charms ever to fit on it (needing a necklace perhaps?), many from travels and with little stories behind them. I loved your stories linking your friends, family and children to the charms - your daughters will be thrilled I am sure, as they grow older and learn the stories behind your charms. Thank you for sharing.

Megan

Reading a description of your charm necklace was a great change from reading fangirl squees, fangirl arguments, fangirl movie reviews... you get my drift.

Nope not bored. I enjoy your posts -- they're always interesting, often introspective. The story of something so personal and detailed as a charm necklace gives an interesting window into your life. But how could the doctors make such a HUGE error as to not know that you were still pregnant? Wow, I haven't ever heard of that before.

In future, if you're worried, you can always do one of the cutaways, and that way people can click if they're interested, and others who might not be can more readily skip it. Just a thought.

But I enjoyed it. :)

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, what dividing line does it indicate, to "sit above the salt"? (EHR)

I haven't read EHR but I did do medieval re-enactment for several years, so I can't resist being a show-off. (And historical cooking was one of my big obsessions.) Peg, feel free to correct me if you used it differently!

Historically, being seated "above the salt" meant being one of the most important people invited to dinner (typically, the aristocracy).

At medieval feasts, people were seated according to rank. The part of the table that ranked the highest would have little luxuries such as salt* and white(r) bread and extra dishes to eat -- things the other tables wouldn't have. Those who were seated at the higher tables were, therefore, "above the salt"; those who were seated at the lesser tables were "below the salt".

*Salt was expensive. It was a necessary luxury, since it was used to preserve meats and fish, but not often out on the table as we have it today.

(makes mental note to self -- must acquire Emerald House Rising and Wild Swans)

I love the stories of your charm necklace, and would love to see pictures of it! It sounds like the sort of lovely thing that you can sit down and tell stories about, to your children: "This charm is from the day when we..."

And I like the idea of accomplishments, loves, dreams, friendships and memories all strung together like that. It's a novel in itself, no?

- Darice

Yes! Bails! That's the right word. Thank you.

And I'm glad you enjoyed reading.

I was trying to figure that out last night. I don't know how to do it.

To "sit above the salt" was a term I picked up in my research that meant in medieval times and (I suspect) in Renaissane times, to sit at the table in a position that was above your proper social class. Salt was extremely expensive and was so was kept in elaborate serving utensils (See, cf, the elaborate salt cellar of Benvenuto Cellini:

Peg

To do the cutaway, this is the code:

<*lj-cut text="words you want to appear"> then paste whatever it was you want 'cut away' here. If the cutaway isn't the last thing you want to appear in your entry (ie you want to go back to having things visible on the main page) type <*/lj-cut> at the end.

(Take out the * s in the code.)

So, you could have done something like:

<*lj-cut text="Details of my charm necklace"> then paste all the information here, with an optional <*/lj-cut> at the end.

And thanks to you and peacockharpy for the salt information. I'd forgotten how precious salt used to be.

I'd posted the whole pregnancy story to somebody else's livejournal yesterday, here.

I misspoke,

peacockharpy is correct. "Sitting above the salt" doesn't mean, specifically, sitting above your social station, but that's just how Jena uses it in context in that scene. Yes, above the salt is aristocracy, and Jena is protesting that she can't sit above the salt because she's not of that class.

Hope that clarifies.

And thanks for the explanation on cutaways!

Thanks for the link. Wow, what a scary experience - but I'm glad it came out so well. I hope your friend's pregnancy turns out all right, too.

Renee is also a name I've considered as a middle name for our future daughter, although for a different reason - my father's name is Rene'. Nice to know what it means.

I wouldn't worry about boring people, if they don't want to read it, they'll stop. It is your journal, after all. I didn't find it boring, I love hearing stories like that and the way you write it is very alluring. Hmm, makes sense, you being a writer an all ::grin::.

Charm necklace

I hope you don't mind a stranger commenting

Charming charms

Wibble not

no subject

Salt

charming

Re: I hope you don't mind a stranger commenting

How do you do a cutaway?

Re: How do you do a cutaway?

The pregnancy story

Clarification re: salt

Re: The pregnancy story

no subject