Discover how the vibrant colors of a New England autumn inspire jewelry design. From cider donuts to Smugglers Notch, explore a 'jewelry-first' approach to packing and seasonal style.
In my native coastal California, Fall means… well, slightly less intense sunshine. And a little rain, hopefully? It’s a place where seasons whisper rather than announce themselves. So when the opportunity arose to visit my sister’s farm in Vermont during peak foliage season, I seized it with the curiosity of someone who’d only seen New England autumns in photographs.
What I didn’t expect was how deeply this journey would resonate with my thinking about jewelry, seasons, and the conversation between what we wear and the natural world around us.
My sister Sheri Arroyo’s place, Fuller Mountain Farm near Lake Champlain in Vermont, became our base for the visit. Eight and a half acres of pastoral splendor, anchored by a stately 200-year-old farmhouse that has witnessed two centuries of Vermont autumns. The view of unbuilt countryside stretches from organic gardens and fruit trees and across a valley to the ridge beyond, its forests color-coded in nature’s own palette: burgundy, flame, amber, rust.
Each morning, my sister, Chief Elf and I would drink coffee and apple cider made from the farm’s own organic apples, contemplating that vista. It was in these quiet moments that I began to understand what I’d come seeking – not just the visual spectacle of fall, but the feeling of a season, the power of a natural force that arrives with splendor and certainty and transforms everything.
Regular readers of my newsletter know that I am currently using an alternative travel packing process. Instead of planning clothing first, I’m using a variation of the “dessert first” approach. I start with jewelry.
I’ll explain later.
For this journey I chose three pieces from my own Signature Collection:
Princess Wingate, an agate pendant set in gold. Born in California’s Death Valley Wingate Mine, this stone glows with autumn’s vocabulary – rust, amber, cream, deep brown – all swirled together in intricate patterns.
A cocktail ring next, one of golden rutilated quartz in a gold bezel, Golden Rays ring is like captured sunlight. The golden rutiles suspended in clear quartz seemed perfect for a landscape I imagined would be all about light filtering through leaves.
Finally, for movement and swing, a pair of sterling silver drop earrings embossed with 24k gold clovers. These Fortune’s Daughter Drop Earrings are festive and substantial, just right for a journey that was, after all, a celebration on many levels.
Our first touring day took us to Stowe, where it was an improbable 79 degrees in early October. Delighted visitors lined up for “maple creamees” – Vermont’s answer to soft-serve ice cream, infused with local maple syrup. The juxtaposition was perfect: autumn colors blazing all around us, but warm enough for a hyper-local ice cream experience.
My Golden Rays ring caught every angle of light as I held my maple creamee, the golden rutiles inside the quartz seeming to echo the afternoon sun through yellow birch leaves.
Our drive through Smugglers Notch was the kind of experience that makes you understand why people write poetry about New England autumns. The narrow, winding road climbs through a gap in the mountains, with forest pressing close on both sides – a tunnel of color.
I wore my Princess Wingate pendant that day. As we stopped at overlooks, I found myself noticing how this California stone seemed utterly at home here. Its complex patterns – geological time made visible – echoed the intricate layering of the Vermont forest: birch bark, maple leaves, granite outcroppings, ferns still green in the shadows.
This is what I mean about jewelry as a method of connection rather than coordination. I wasn’t “matching” my pendant to an outfit. I was wearing a piece that called me to attend to my surroundings, that created a private resonance with the environment. The stone became a lens, sharpening my awareness of pattern, color, rhythms of time.
Just a few days later, we awoke to discover another weather-related delight: the season’s First Frost. Very beautiful to photograph, the phenomenon of frost on a farm is significant as it unambiguously declares End-of-Season for many tender plants.
Perhaps you’ve heard the expression that “cider donuts are a passport to autumn happiness.” As inquisitive Californians, we decided to investigate thoroughly.
Our survey allowed us to explore the region and visit four choice purveyors:
Our favorite? Shelburne Orchards, where the fulsome apple cider flavor comes through clearly, finished with a dusting of maple sugar on the outside.
For donut expeditions, I wore Fortune’s Daughter earrings. There’s something about their festive nature – the way they catch light and move – that matched the pure fun of this quest. Jewelry doesn’t always have to be profound. Sometimes it’s just permission to feel celebratory about the small joys: a perfect craft donut, warm October sunshine, the company of family.
Watching cold water move over stones in the Middlebury River at the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail near Ripton, VT, I took in the deep fir green of the evergreens against the gold of birch leaves. In that moment, I thought of a pair of rare Maw Sit Sit stones I have in my studio – vivid green with dark inclusions. I’ve been awaiting clarity about them. Suddenly I could see it: they needed to become a pendant and a ring, set in high quality gold, a tribute to this sumptuous tableau of autumn gold holding evergreen fir.
Later, driving through thick woods that had turned entirely rust-colored, I remembered a polished leopardskin jasper rhyolite cabochon waiting back home – its spotted, earthy patterns suddenly making perfect sense as an impressionist homage to this exact landscape.
This is how nature informs craft. Not by literal copying, but through a kind of attunement, an interpretation. You see something that moves you, and you understand, suddenly, what a stone has been waiting to become.
Back in Santa Monica, fall is still whispering rather than trumpeting. But I brought Vermont home with me – in photographs, in memories of perfect cider donuts, and in a renewed understanding of my own craft.
Those Maw Sit Sit stones are on my bench now. The Leopard Skin jasper is waiting. And I’m thinking about next autumn, wherever I spend it, and what I’ll choose to wear.
Explore the jewelry from this journey in our Signature Collection and at Donna Weaver Design.
Donna Weaver creates studio jewelry that is designed to become lifelong companions. Through her writing and metalwork, she explores how natural jewelry can enhance enjoyment and anchor us through the journeys and transitions of life.
