September bead soup palettes

Just before september turns into october, I got a monthly colour palette together. Didn't think I could manage so first I just threw something together from an old photo illustrating a post on using multi-coloured thread in beading (as seen here), but then I made this palette. As I didn't want to waste a photo I thus ended up with two palettes for a month that looked like it would have to make due with none.

Both palettes are very autumnal, perhaps because I feel wistful about missing many of the beautiful, sunny september days while being too ill to enjoy them (ironically I'm writing this with the sun shining on a blue sky outside the window *embarrassed*). The basic theme was green and red(ish) as so much of nature and in the gardens are turning into that colourway: the apple trees, rowans, swedish whitebeams (oxel), virginia creeper, himalayan balsam etc -- and soon even more will follow like the aronia and the japanese maple.

For this, my second palette that you can see above, I just picked up three of the six shades of the new luminous delicas that I couldn't manage to avoid buying some time ago. Three earthy, autumnal colours.

My original, just-something-I-whipped-together palette focused wholly on thread. More specifically, it was all about this space-dyed braided silk thread from Stef Francis (may remember if from the Challenge of Travel reveal). The colours can easily be changed by using lightly coloured transparent beads instead of clear beads. Topaz yellow hues will add a warm autumnal tint to the colours while black diamond (transparent grey) will add a dark antiqued colour.


These are two rather different palettes, but to me both speak of september. The latter palette is more about apple trees; green leaves mixing with green and rose-to-red apples (matte waxy apples can look more rose than red). The former is more about changing leaves with its earthy, warm hues. Now, for that autumn forest feel, you might need to add some stronger colours too (brown, red, yellow, even green). This is a very soft palette, but I like it that way too.