Ear cuffs

Continuing with items made last spring, wire ear cuffs; perfect for those who don't have pierced ears :D. They were made such that you can attach interchangeable danglies, some of which are also shown in the photos. The set in the top photo are made of niobium, which is less likely to cause allergic reactions than many other metals (and about half as expensive as sterling silver to buy). The ones in the bottom photo are copper, which is somewhat less expensive, and easier to work with, although prone to discolouration on some people.

Texturing (more from spring of '09)

In September of '08 I made myself an interpretation of the Queen Akasha costume from the movie "Queen of the Damned" for Halloween. In order to do this I required some sheet metal. While poking around my basement I found some leftover furnace duct which my folks kindly allowed me to pilfer. Six weeks later I had my costume, and the seeds of some new ideas were sewn.

I went about doing other things, and then last spring it occurred to me that I could be doing some things with that sheet metal. First I made some earrings by gluing bits of scrap copper wire into a curvy pattern on little rectangles of the steel sheet. Then I had a spree of earcuff making..and the metal looked dull, so I decided to try texturing it with a punch and hammer. This worked out kind of neat, so I went on to do some pendants, seen below:

Evolution

Several years ago when I first started doing this, I found a couple of matching red chandelier type crystals at the flea market. A while after that (approximately April 2006) one of them found it's way into a necklace. Technically I suppose you could say it was my first chainmaille piece, since it has lots of little jump rings attached to each other. I really had no idea what I was doing; I was just trying to hide the wire I used to make the "hanger" (aka bail and frame all in one). The other crystal continued to sit in my tackle box until last spring's burst of experimentation. I thought I'd just post pics of the two necklaces together as an example of a) the evolution of my work, and b) how the same crystal looks set in different manners.

This is the first make-shift-maille piece made in spring of 2006:


And below the second piece set in a stainless steel frame wire wrapped in a contrasting craft wire, spring of 2009:

Fabergé...ish

Late February 2009 - Fabergé....ish

There's this nice little jewellery shop in the mall called Serendipitous. They sell silver jewellery with semi-precious stones. I don't usually do much jewellery shopping, but I do tend to stop by and chat with their manager, who I met when we were both selling hand made jewellery at a craft show. This particular day though, they had the prettiest little spherical locket style pendant with a little ball-chime inside and an amethyst on the top. They called it a Harmony Pendant. I just couldn't walk away without buying it.

I was (and still am) quite pleased with my purchase, but it also got me to thinking...could I make something similar using wire wrapping? I tried to let the thought go and just enjoy my pendant, but the idea wouldn't let go of me. So I let it stew around my head a bit and then did a sketch. Then I cut some wire and started putting it together. I didn't get too far when I thought to myself "This is insane, this is too fiddly, going to be way too time consuming" and I gave up. Or at least I thought I did, but the idea still wouldn't let go of me, so after a few more days of simmering, I changed my tactic, cut some more wire and started again. 5 hours, over 8 feet of wire, and 2 magnetic hematite beads later, my sphere turned out to be more of an egg shape approximately 1 1/4 inches tall, and 5/8 inch diameter.

After looking at it awhile, it reminded me (and apparently a local chainmailler I know) of a Fabergé Egg, so I guess it was kind of a happy accident. This piece was finished 26th or 27th Feb. 2009. Eventually, when I'm feeling more ambitious, I have an idea how to make one that actually opens :D

Feb '09 - learning from Dianne Karg Baron

In the previous post I explained that my first inspiration to try wire wrapping came from a trip to the NS Gem & Mineral show in Parrsboro. Those first pieces were very basic.

After some hunting on the internet I found Dianne Karg Baron's site, Wrapture Wire Jewellery, and her work was so beautiful, it inspired me to try slightly more complex pieces. Naturally I check back to her blog from time to time, and in mid February of 2009 she posted a piece called "Double Sided Citrine Pendant". Again, I just had to try the technique.

The copper pendant seen here is the result of my efforts.




I used 19ga stainless wire for the base, and 24ga copper craft wire for the wrapping. The nextimage shows how the two pieces of steel are woven together to make the frame. The weave creates a shallow channel which holds the edge of the stone.
(In this case, the stone is one of Dad's creations.)



I wasn't sure that the frame was quite snug enough to truly hold the stone, so I added the extra wraps all the way around just as a precaution. Not perfect, but as a first attempt I was happy with it.

Ms. Baron's site is at www.wrapturewirejewellery.on.ca

I later found pieces in a similar, but more chaotically sculptural style at www.metalworkers.org.

My own further experiments included this finger ring (19th Mar 09), and beaded marble pendant (18th March 09):

Nova Scotia Gem & Mineral Show 2009

First, let me remark that although I haven't posted since October of '08, it does not mean I haven't been making anything; I just got a bit lazy about posting here since I had started posting pics to facebook. In the next week or so I will try to play some catch-up.

Now on to the meat of this post.

This year marks the 4th year I can recall having attended the Gem & Mineral Show, which is put on every August by the Fundy Geological Museum at Parrsboro, NS. My first inspiration to try making my own wire wrapped jewellery was a simple pendant that I purchased while attending this show for the first time in 2005. One year I attended the show (which is approximately a 2hr drive from my home) even though I worked until 7:30 am on the day we went over, and had to go back in to work at 11:30 that same night. Luckily I wasn't driving :D

Previous years, I mostly bought finished pieces of jewellery for myself to wear, and one or two items for making jewellery. This year I promised myself I would NOT buy any more rings (I bought one at each of the first three shows, of which my favorite two were from Nikki Sheriff) and I am happy to say I held to that promise.

So what did I buy? This year I managed to stay under budget, and yet acquire some lovely cabachons, including a lovely piece of labradorite, a piece of rutilated quartz which I'm told was cut by Hans Durstling, and sundry small cabs of a size suited to set in rings :D (I did not promise I wouldn't buy materials for the making of rings :D). And lastly, I bought a pretty little pendant consisting of a yellow and orange swirly hand-made glass cab wrapped in gold filled wire, mainly because it matched my outfit. I'm afraid I was a bit disappointed with the bail when I discovered it was too small for the ends of my gold chain to fit through; it appears I will have to attach it with a jump ring, or make a necklace especially for the pendant.

This year, our day didn't end with our departure from the show. We had a delicious lunch at the Gloosecap restaurant (although I'm afraid the waitress was too busy reminding people about the show when she should have been looking after her tables), and then took a little tour out to the beach because I hadn't seen it before. It was an impressive view, but the adventure turned to misadventure when I got my car bogged down in the loose rocks of the road. Luckily Dad is an awesome driver and got us unstuck, but I haven't yet had the courage to look for damage to the undercarriage. Even so, it was a good day.

Next year I hope to stay overnight and perhaps attend one of the tours and some of the demonstrations by the craftspeople. Oh, and this is one of the pics that may have cost me some damage to my car: