Ten Great Colors for Fall!

One of my lesser known passions is making books by hand. The pages in these two books are all hand-painted papers. I painted the papers and constructed the book in a 2-day (whirlwind) class taught by Albie Smith at Art & Soul in Portland, OR a few years ago.

I'm showing the books because of the fall color palette I used.

I'm a great fan of Margie Deeb! I love her books about how to find and use many wonderful color combinations, especially her most recent book, shown below.


Forget the color wheel! Margie gives fun and easy to follow color palettes ~ everything from predictable to waaaay out of the box ~ and examples of beadwork (some of which I contributed to this book) showing how specific palettes might be interpreted with beads .

Margie asked me to review her latest Color Report, which explores the possibilities for the ten Pantone colors predicted (check out this fun Pantone link) to be popular this fall and winter, a forecast formulated long ago and used by clothing and assessory designers for fashions released now and into the late fall. You can explore the beady possibilities for this palette of ten great colors with the help of Margie Deeb's latest color report: Fall/Winter 2009 Color Report for Bead & Jewelry Designers, which is available to purchase on line here.

Below are the ten colors. (Color on the internet is always variable depending on your monitor and computer settings. These are approximations of the exact Pantone colors, which are specified by the numbers shown.)

American Beauty, #19-1759, a feel-good color


Purple Heart, #18-3520, refinement and sensuality


Honey Yellow, #16-1143, classic color of autumn


Iron, #18-1306, a grounding color


Burnt Sienna, #17-1544, earth and sunsets


Nomad, #16-1212, bridge between grey and beige


Rapture Rose, #17-1929, vibrant yet soft


Warm Olive, #15-0646, touch of sophistication


Majolica Blue, #19-4125, exotic flair


Crème Brûlée, #13-1106, timeless neutral color

The names of the colors are by Pantone, but in her report, Margie supplies the numbers for matching Delica beads, gemstone names, etc. She invited seven guest artists to work with her, creating jewelry where the color choices are based on various combinations of these ten colors. There's something here for everyone.

Even me! I'm not much of a fall colors person (except in nature and books). I rarely wear fall colors. However, as I read through the report and looked at all the gorgeous examples, I couldn't help getting really excited about playing with some of these colors. Inspired by Margie's color report, I made my own palette as shown below.


I wouldn't bead this exact design, but will probably stick to the proportions of color. OK! Now I have to go check my beads and fabrics to see what I have in these colors for my next bead embroidery project. Whooohooo, this will be a blast! I'm on my way to my stash right now!

Oh, and YES, I give an A++ to Margie's report. If you want to play with color, it's a grand place to start. Not only for beaders, it will also work well for quilters, painters and anybody using color in their art!