Inspired By Reading: The High Mountains of Portugal

I hope you're all having a happy and safe Memorial Day weekend.  It's crazy hot here, so I've been trying to spend as much time as possible in my cool basement lair!

I'm a little behind in getting something made and posted for the April Inspired by Reading Book Club.  (Spoilers: there's a good chance I'll behind on the May selection as well!)  April's selection was The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel.  This was the first time I'd read one of his books... don't judge, I spent years as the children's and young adult book selector for my library system which didn't leave much time to read adult books.

This was one of those novels that I felt compelled to keep reading but honestly couldn't tell you why.  The book is told in three distinct parts, each in a different time period, and each dealing with how one handles grief.  As the stories unfold, you end up discovering how they are all connected.  Even after putting some distance between me and finishing the book, I'm still left feeling that I just didn't get it.  I found it odd that parts of the novel felt very grounded in realism and other parts were strange and magical.  In the end it just didn't come together and gel for me.  I'd love to hear how others reacted to it though and get your insights.

As I read, I kept trying to latch onto some sort of imagery or something that I could translate into a jewelry piece but came up short.  Determined to make something since I actually finished the book, I ended up taking my inspiration from the book's cover.  I had an enameled pendant by Gardanne that had the perfect combination of colors.

Wanting to keep the pendant the star of the show, and having a mix of size 11 seed beads in the perfect colors, I decided to go with a multi strand design of seed beads and small Czech glass beads.  I'm really happy with how this one came together!

Now to try and get working on something for our May selection... at least I've finished reading it!