Wherein We Discuss Purple, Poetry, Hats, Whimsy, and Cows

I will confess, I love the color purple. If a bead is purple, there's a better than 90 percent chance I will find an overwhelming need to adopt it. It will inexplicably crawl into my bead shopping tray and come home to live with me.

Purple can be subtle, or it can be bold, but it will be noticed.

And since this is Hat Week (welcome to my mind, and the new holiday I have created), it seems only appropriate to see how this plays in the wonderful world of haberdashery.

Quick aside -- isn't "haberdashery" a fabulously fun word?

Okay, vocabulary lesson over. Let's look at some hats and some jewelry. The hats are both whimsical and fun, but they strike me as having distinctly different personalities.

I love the bold, "I'm here!" vibe of this hat. It's not for the meek. Or for those with low roofs in their cars...

And here is a cuff bracelet I made that features some amethyst geodes -- also a real statement maker for a woman who's not afraid to be noticed. And decidedly easier to fit into any car. The colors on the photos are a little washed out, but look at all the purple!




Then there's this fascinator, which is not terribly understated, but the curvy lines and openness of the design somehow makes it a little more approachable. Following it is an ndebele bracelet, which echoes the curvilinear feel of the hat.




I suppose the fact that I would love purple was obvious when one of the first poems I learned when I was very little was "Purple Cow" by Gellette Burgess.

I never saw a purple cow.

I never hope to see one.

But I can tell you anyhow,

I'd rather see than be one.

What can I say? It tickled my funny bone when I was three. I also love "The Color Purple," both the book and the movie, so my literary tastes grew up a bit, but the color attraction seems to show up in many facets of life...