I hope you are having a wonderful Holiday Season!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Intermediate Stone Setting
A few weeks ago, I took a two-day workshop given by Wayne Werner through MASSC on intermediate stone setting. We looked at flush, pave, and prong setting diamond cut stones. These are things I "know" how to do, but am not practiced at, and don't own all the tools for, so I thought it would be good for me to practice with a master. Mr. Werner was funny and great to learn from. The photo above was him demonstrating pave setting using a large, green, diamond shaped, glass paperweight and setting it into a tub of vanilla ice cream using a spoon graver to raise beads of "metal" over the edge. That was on the 2nd day of the workshop. The first day was spent entirely on flush setting. After the demo, it was the attendees' turn to try it out. I actually got the stone to "pop" into the setting I made on the first try, so Wayne gave me a sticker for my optivisor. It says, "Rock Star" on it. He didn't see the part where the stone fell out after I thought I had it burnished in place.
I did manage to get my three CZ's flush set into my a bit of copper and one pave set into a bit of silver. The pave one is a mess, but it's in there. I need a lot more practice with a graver. obviously. I didn't have time to attempt the prong setting at the workshop, but I will work on it. I now have a wish list which includes a huge assortment of setting burrs and stones. We did make two burnishers - steel and brass - I love making my own tools! Mr. Werner also gave a presentation of his body of work and of Foredom tools - I have a wonderful Foredom Flex Shaft, but there are so many great accessories for it and some other fantastic toys I cannot afford nor have space for, but covet greatly. The hardest part of the workshop was writing the article for the MASSC newsletter, which I volunteered to do. I hope I got everything right in it.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Favorite Finds
For me? Pour moi?
I should be shopping for Christmas gifts, but I keep finding fantastic things that I want to fill my home and closet with. Here are just a few of them.
There's something wonderful about drinking tea from a tea bowl and this one has a gorgeous glaze. I could look at it all day.
I love this jacket. The satin ties and the rough cotton are perfect together.
I may need to invent a reason to need a blue capelet.
4. dent de lion
This photographer's work has a dreamy quality that I love.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Project Runway Jewelry Challenge: Finale
Silver and Brass Filigree!
We wrap up our Project Runway jewelry challenge with "mini collections". Five pieces representing a cohesive collection including a necklace, earrings, ring, bracelet, and another item to chose to make. My collection is inspired by the Getty inspiration piece from a couple of weeks ago. I love how the yellow, raw brass filigree looks against a background of sterling silver, so I went back to my local vintage findings shop and rummaged through their bins for interesting little bits of brass. My five piece collection includes five different selections of brass in five different shapes and sizes.
The necklace is a hollow form curved rectangle with a square filigree and a hidden tube bale on the reverse. I wanted the square piece to be featured dimensionally and it's size to be enhanced. The width on the sides of the brass gives it that enhancement and the convex curve of the front makes in dimensional.
The earrings are made from two parts of a large medallion of brass filigree that a cut apart and soldered to tear shaped silver. They are 1 1/8 inch long and an inch wide.
The ring is a simple 1/4 inch wide band with a single spray of leaf filigree as it's feature. It is suitable for a man or a woman to wear. I considered making a more complicated cocktail ring, but I am happy with the way it turned out.
The bracelet is the piece that I grappled with the most. I thought about affixing these two shapes of brass filigree to a cuff style bracelet. The 'X' shapes are perfectly suited to the diamond shaped filigrees. I decided on the cut out shapes as a link bracelet as I thought It would go better with the rest of the collection. Each of the seven pieces has a slight curve for comfort and dimension.
My final piece is a pair of cufflinks with some small scrolled filigree on circles. I am trying to include more men's and unisex pieces in my line, so this was a great opportunity to put cufflinks in!
Check out my and the other participants final interview and a look at all of our weekly designs here and please take a look at the other fantastic mini-collections!
And it's a wrap! Here's the EtsyMetal post!
Friday, November 20, 2009
EtsyMetal Jewelry Challenge: Pop Challenge
Before the final challenge - a five piece, cohesive collection for the Project Runway Jewelry Challenge - is due (next Friday), we were given a pop challenge to make something using a 1" by 3" piece of sheet metal and three feet of wire - any gauge or size, copper or silver. I used 24 gauge sterling silver sheet and 18 gauge square wire. This is a two sided pendant. I cut the sheet metal into two pieces and curved them in a forming block. I added the square wire in a geometric spiral on one piece, and a bee's path to a flower on the other. The two curved pieces are joined to make a pillow shape and more square wire and sheet are used for the pi bale. I have a 1"x 1/4" piece of sheet and 2 feet of wire left over. If I had had another hour, I could have used the wire for two more geometric spiral earrings.
More Pop Challenges:
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Project Runway Jewelry Challenge: The Getty!
This week on Project Runway, the designers had their last challenge. They were given the Getty Museum as inspiration. They took a 30 minute tour, and had 30 minutes to choose an inspiration piece and sketch. I'm lucky enough to live nearby the Getty and I could spend all day there and not see everything. It took me longer than 30 minutes to look through their online collection photos and choose something to work on. I found a group of silver bowls of an unknown artist from the Parthian (modern Iran) made in the 1st or 2nd century AD. I selected the Bowl with Leaf Calyx Medallion as my inspiration for this challenge.
My interpretation of the bowl consists of a sterling silver disk, dapped into a tiny bowl and given a brass filigree medallion of leaves similar to the gold inlayed calyx medallion on my inspiration piece. The tiny bowl becomes a necklace with a tube bale and chain. I gave it a matte finish to reflect the aged silver of the Getty's ancient bowl.
More Getty inspired work:
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Project Runway Jewelry Challenge: Companion Piece
Tall Palm Earrings
These Tall Palm Earrings are the companion to last week's Palm Lined Street Necklace. There wasn't much time for me to devote to this week's project as I am busy with what seems like a zillion other projects, but I think they're cute. These palms are much taller than those in the necklace - they do get super tall, while keeping their skinny trunks - Amazing trees, I think. They don't provide much (if any) shade from the hot sun, but the bushy tips of the trees dot the sky wherever I look.
More Companion Pieces:
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