Half Flower Beaded Drop Earrings, Kenya Flag Colours

Beaded drop earrings built as a half flower: four padded petals in black, red, green and white around a coiled gold tone centre, edged bead by bead in gold and hung from a gold tone hook. Of the beadwork in this shop, this is the pair that says Kenya at a glance. The four petal colours are the four colours of the Kenyan flag and they are laid out plainly, so the piece is read across a room rather than explained up close. If you want that, this is the pair. If you would rather the colours were there without announcing themselves, the Infinity knot pair from the same maker sets the same colours into a knot that reads as a graphic shape first. Each petal is worked over a form so it sits domed rather than flat, with a raised line of gold beads down the spine and a picot edge of single gold beads all the way round. That edge is the slow part, added one bead at a time after the petal is finished. The beads are the small glass seed beads sold across Kenya as Maasai beads, which is the maker's own term for them. The flower pattern is the maker's own, not a traditional motif. Keep them dry, take them off before swimming, and store them flat so the petals keep their shape.