Some Holly Yashi pieces come and stay. Others make one dazzling appearance.
Our Holiday Limited Editions belong to the latter. Made only for the season and in limited quantities, they've become something of an annual occasion for collectors. And this year, our 45th, called for a particularly memorable pair.
Meet the Holiday 2026 Limited Edition Necklace and Earrings: deep, iridescent sapphire set against gold, richly detailed, made by hand in our Arcata studio, and destined for a very short run.
Their story, however, begins in grey.
From Grey to Gorgeous
Grey has never been our color. It is, however, where every one of our colors begins.
Niobium arrives at our studio as a dull grey metal with nothing to say for itself. Then we introduce it to water and electricity, and it turns out to have a lot to say.
There's no dye involved, and not a drop of paint. In a water bath, a carefully controlled current grows a layer on the metal's surface thinner than a soap bubble, and it plays the same trick with light that a soap bubble does. The thickness of that layer determines the shade. A little more charge, a different blue. For pieces with several colors, we go back to the bath again, one dip at a time.
Forty-five years in, we're still stunned by the magic that emerges.
The Necklace
The necklace is the kind that makes a dinner party go quiet.
Patterned medallions sweep along the neckline between golden botanical motifs, gemstones, and delicate openwork. Lighter blues drift across the metal, giving all that glorious detail a sense of movement.
Each element is assembled by hand into a graduated design that settles just at the collarbone. From across the room, it's sapphire and gold and drama. Come closer and the smaller details start to reveal themselves: pattern, texture, gemstones, botanical flourishes, and those shifting shades of blue.
It demands a closer look, which is fortunate, because it will get plenty.
The Earrings
The earrings hold their own, too. Here, the sapphire-hued niobium is framed in sculpted gold, with gemstones, crystals, and a jeweled fringe below. They shimmer, sway, and catch the light. Together, the necklace and earrings are a winter night in blue, lit from within by gold.
True, it's excessive.
But we've always thought that "more" is exactly the right amount.
Here for the Holidays. Loved Forever.
The thing about our Limited Edition styles is that their limited life only applies to us.
We make these pieces for one season. Then we stop. For the person who takes one home, the story is just getting started.
The earrings worn to a holiday dinner this December will become the pair that comes out every December. A necklace chosen for one celebration has a way of finding its way to the next. Years pass, occasions accumulate, and somewhere along the way the piece you bought because it was rare becomes valuable for an entirely different reason.
Maybe that's what collectors have known all along. Rarity may start the romance, but loving something is what makes it yours.
And after 45 years of handcrafting jewelry, we like knowing that the best part of its story happens after it leaves us.
Come See What the Camera Misses
If your travels bring you to California's North Coast this holiday season, we hope you'll come see the Limited Editions in person at the Holly Yashi store.
Photographs do their best, but niobium has never been very good at sitting still for the camera. Turn the necklace toward the light and the sapphire shifts. Move the earrings, and the crystals catch. Come closer and you'll see details that are easy to miss on a screen.
For those admiring from afar, both Limited Edition designs are also available online.
