Swirley-gig Earrings

Recently while surfing I stumbled upon these elegantly simple earrings at Etsy. I just couldn't resist making a pair, but ended up putting my own twist on the style and making several pair out of hypo-allergenic niobium wire, and two more pair in sterling silver. With the extra swirl at the bottom of the earrings, and using 6mm beads, each earring requires 3 1/4 inches of 20ga wire. After describing the swirl of wire at the bottom as a "swirly-gig", the name seems to have stuck on the earrings.

See below the first earring, made with niobium wire and tree agate beads:

And the most recent 2 pair, made with sterling silver, one set with fashion crystal beads, the other with amethyst beads:

Ooo I love rings...

Thanks to my brother for having made me some stepped ring mandrels awhile back, I can have some fun making rings every now and then. Most recently I decided to take a stab at the method which involves wrapping the entire band of the ring. The first couple of attempts were okay, but not awesome as regards the manner in which I set the stones. I finally figured out a tidier method of creating a claw setting for a stone, and Dad was kind enough to let me use one of his hand cut and polished cabs. We believe this stone is a piece of Lapis Lazuli; it does seem to have the little gold colored flecks that I've read are usually found in real lapis, although you can't see them in the picture. All in all I'm quite pleased with the results.

P.S. - the wire is just inexpensive craft wire, possibly brass, that we bought quite some time ago at Mountain Gems.

Rutilated Quartz?

A couple of weeks ago my family and I went to the Nova Scotia Gem & Mineral Show in Parrsboro, as we have every summer since several years now. There was a fellow there selling finished loose gems and he had a rather pretty piece that was clear with black needle-like inclusions. I was really drawn to it so naturally I asked what it was, and he said that it's rutilated quartz, and specified some other material that's in it; unfortunately I don't remember the name. I did some searching on the net though, and from what I gather, it's only rutilated quartz if the inclusions consist of the mineral rutile. I also am lead to believe that rutile produces gold coloured inclusions rather than black. If only I'd paid better attention to the man...

Now, to get to the good part. I purchased the very pretty stone. I was having a hard time deciding what to do with it, and so, as of yesterday it was still sitting in my bead box...right up until I decided I absolutely had to wear it asap. So, I grabbed my copper, thinking I'd make a temporary wrap just to get it wearable while I figure out what it's final form should take. The construction went so smoothly that I decided I better not tempt the fates by taking it apart and trying something else later! So after I arrived home, having worn the pendant all afternoon on a random necklace I found kicking around my shelf, I made a copper chain on which to hang it. Below are the results photos:



And of course, the close-up:



On a whim, I added 2 red jasper beads, and 2 tiny, so-called "magnetic hematite" beads (just for the colour match).

Update: Some reading since this was originally posted indicates the stone may actually be tourmilated (ie has tourmaline inclusions), but that some folks use the phrase "rutilated quartz" to indicate any quartzy with needle-like inclusions.

Double Strand Helm Chain

Firstly, note that I had recently made a single strand of this out of bronze and my Mum liked it, but found it scratchy (this because I only made it out of boredom and snip cut the rings instead of saw cutting them, for the sake of getting to the assembly stage more quickly).

So then 2 Saturdays ago we popped into the Farm Market in New Glasgow where a) Mum bought a bunch of beets, and b) we bumped into a fellow chainmailler selling his wares. Included amongst his works were a couple of bracelets in one of my favorite weaves, Interwoven Byzantine Sheet. Mum also liked them, mostly because they were wider than the other bracelets I've made for her thus far, so.....

I made her this double stranded helm chain bracelet. It's 20ga copper; the larger rings made on a 3/16 mandrel, and the smaller on a 1/8 mandrel. Since Mum is has super sensitive skin, I filed the cut edges by hand. Yes, this was time consuming, as was cutting half the rings with a not-so-sharp saw blade.

Final Stats on this lovely piece:

• 18 grams of copper wire used (including scrap)
• about 10 and 1/4 hours labour over 3 days
• 1 band-aid (cut myself when the not-so-sharp saw blade slipped off the coil)
  
• multiple hand cramps

If I were to try to sell one, charging minimum wage for my labour, I'd be trying to charge over $80 CAD for an item that has less than $1 worth of copper in it. Good thing I made it for my Mum. :D

Sterling and hematite

I made this for a co-worker who has metal allergies but can wear silver. She wanted something that she could wear with mostly any colour, so hematite seemed a good choice. I have since had a request from another co-worker for one like it, but the store where I purchased the hematite disk no longer has them in stock and I couldn't find them anywhere else (except for Hemalyke, at Fire Mountain Gems, but she wants real hematite, and I prefer to buy Canadian, if not local)