Cracking the Code

“You can just restring this,” said Carolyn.

I wish.  

Look closely.  This necklace had a past.  The person who fixed it most recently was probably trying her best to get the necklace to the sixteen-inch length Carolyn prefers. Unfortunately, some of the large round (Swarovski) pearls and the smaller (freshwater) ones were missing, and she apparently thought the best solution was to leave a lot of room between the beads.

Result:  Swiss cheese.  Or, to be more precise, a whole lot of gaps in the necklace. (The actual length, once the pearls were brought together, was just over thirteen inches.) Also, the combination of several colors of Swarovski pearls and three colors of freshwater was a bit hard on the eyes.

What to do?

At first, I thought I’d just add more of the larger white freshwater pearls.  But that didn’t work.  And then the magic happened.  As I continued to look at the necklace, I saw what the original jeweler had in mind.  I was able to crack the code.

“What code?”

The rhythm the jewelry was intended to have.  In this case, it was what I call a “Morse Code” design:  dot-dash-dot-dash.  I believe that’s what the original intent was, and once I looked closely at the broken necklace, the solution was obvious.

©2018 Laynie Tzena.