Final Jewelry Exhibition

I realize I never posted these, though I was very busy the last week of school so I have a good excuse. These are the fruits of my labors! Here is the showcase, from left to right: the all-familiar rose window locket, the Allerleirauh piece, the selkie pendant, the pewter heart pendant (very heavy!) my new gold rose ring, below those are the copper bracelet and turquoise pendant, and then lastly is my walnut necklace, cast in pewter. See below!

Okay, so obviously the lower part is a walnut shell cast in pewter, the upper part is part of the actual nut. The problem was that during casting we had a few "bubbles" and that resulted in holes. So I got one of my dyed disfigured pearls, and wrapped it throughout the holes. Kind of a "make things do" piece, but I like it.This is a poor image of my gold rose ring. I wear this thing all the time, and I love it! I should, it took enough strain and time and tears!

And that is the end of jewelry making class. Makes me sad.

Copper turquoise pendant

Pretty self-explanatory...I guess not bad for my first bezel piece (I hate that word..piece...it always looks wrong).

Sorry about the poor quality pictures. I'll fiddle around with the camera later.

I put my Allerleirauh piece in an art show and just got word that it was selected! I have to make a little blurb about the story though so it makes more sense. Pictures to come!

Well It's been long enough! Rose Ring and various other materials

Okay, so I know it has been a long time since I posted any of my pieces. This is mainly because I wasn't at school to make any! This week I made and cast my silver rose ring, finished the wire tree, and got lots of goodies. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with them. Maybe you can help me! As you can see it was cast from a wax mold. I've been making this rose in medium or another for three or four years now, and it's nice to have something wearable as a result, though it's about a size 6 3/4, and way too big for me. Sad day.

This is my wire tree, with "pearl" (costume, but I don't know what because they're from some old necklaces my grandmother had) leaves and fruit.

Okay, so the big purple one obviously is amethyst, and the amber one at the bottom is supposedly tiger eye, and the beige one is probably picture jasper, and I don't know what the others are. Anyone know? Also, anyone have any ideas about what to do with these? For juxtaposition purposes, the amethyst is probably about 1.5 inches. I can grind them down into other shapes, and probably will with the amethyst, but I'm not sure about the other ones. I love the blue and white one. The picture jasper is shaped like a piece of pie.

On Knitting with any wire of a guage less than 28

Don't do it.

But seriously, folks..

I've been knitting and crocheting "gold" and "silver" (note the quotation marks) wire for BIG JEWELRY MAKING PROJECT #2. I think I have some promising pieces. The "gold" wire is at 26 gauge and my fingers are totally torn up. Plus, that area on my back between my shoulders hasn't been this sore since I crocheted that huge jute bag. Or maybe since I was paired with someone possessing four times my muscle mass in canoeing class...and he didn't slow down for me. Anyway, no more 26 guage, though it produces a very nice effect. The silver wire is at 32 gauge, and I'm hoping to find a copper-colored one somewhere in-between. I hope no hardcore knitters read this, otherwise I'll be hunted down and burned for a heretic for using my very hard to find size 2, 32 inch addi circular needles on these. They're none the worse for wear, though.

This is my favorite. These two pieces will fit together.... Like this

This one I pretty much gave up on, I made it too wide. If I find wire this color in a finer gauge, I may try it again.

This was a square crocheted and then warped and twisted. There's another crocheted piece but I didn't see the need to put it on here.
After I get the copper wire, finish it, and then get back from Spring Break (thank GOD it's here...), I will finish this rather quickly I think. I just need to find a particularly walnuty looking walnut.

If this all confuses you, read the story Allerleirauh. An online version can be found on Sur La Lune http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/donkeyskin/stories/allerlang.html

Maybe I'll even get to make my ring next week!

Kate

The Rose Window Locket....COMPLETED!!!

That's right, I finished it finally on Thursday. Now I have a few other projects in mind, hopefully they won't take too long because I have very little time to finish all my other projects before classes end! I wish I had a better camera, higher shutter speed and whatnot. I'll get Dad to take good pictures when I go home tomorrow.

Update on Rose Window Locket

So after about five hours of sawing, I finally got the locket cut out!

It looks great but unfortunately I didn't cut it in a complete circle (in hindsight, measuring would have been a good idea...). Since I saved extra class periods by working extra on Thursday, I was able to bend it into the dome shape, which lent itself to other problems. Again, it's not circular, so the edges aren't flush. So I'm spending hour upon hour bending the edges to meet. I also got to pick out my glass and shape it on the lapidary (frightening thing, I'll tell you that!). I'm such a beginner on this, the glass is chipped on the edges. My professor said it looks neat that way, I'm still waffling. A lot of the edge will be covered in silver though so I guess I don't need to worry about it. This is how it will eventually look (sort of). I really love this piece but I need to finish it quickly! I'm running out of time to make my other pieces!

Work in Progress

I'm currently working on my Rose Window Locket.
It is based on this window, but not exactly. I don't know why I love rose windows so much, but there's something about them.



This is a mock-up sketch. The locket will have colored class in between and all will have a clasp.

Right now I'm still cutting the brass. I spent about 40 minutes in class on it today, and my arm is incredibly sore! Hopefully it will all pay off! Will keep updated!