Shawna
(how is this a "queries" question?)
Assuming your example is not your actual data...
If you have an object that has properties you describe with [opt.]table1 and
[opt.]table2 and ... [opt.]table16, it sounds like your table design might
benefit from more normalization. I can't be sure, though, given "colors"
and "shapes".
What I do notice is that you are creating a row with "Red Circle", when you
could be simply storing a pair of IDs (e.g., ColorID=B, ShapeID=1). Adding
the text is redundant and unnecessary, since you can query back against the
two tables to find the text values. And you don't want to store the string
"B1", either. Store as individual IDs, in separate fields.