For those of you who haven't actually seen my so-called workspace, here's a glimpse:



Wow, lots of bead boxes in a wall-mounted storage unit with an attached light, how utterly neat and tidy!



A closet filled with drawers of perfectly sorted yarns, wow!

Ha.



Below the ever-so-organized custom built bead storage unit is the work table. Visible tops: optional.



And the even-worse desk that made the move from my parents' basement to my "studio". The most frightening part is that comparatively speaking, this is clean.

Labels: jewelry, organization, shameless self-promotion

After a bit of deliberation, I decided to use sterling silver for the bail instead of copper. I got the front part of the spiral done and summarily pounded, but figuring out the rest of the bail was a little interesting. I think I had it in about five different configurations before settling on a smaller spiral for the back. (We'll call it "work hardening" and leave it at that, right?)

Spending all that time staring closely at the front of the ammonite made me notice something intriguing: there are hints of purple at the edges of the opalescent section. From everything I've read on the coloration of ammolite (the resulting gemstone fashioned from the opalescent bits of ammonite that are thick enough) the colors are based on the thickness of the material. Red coloration represents the thickest layers and is most common, while purple is at the end of the spectrum, represents the thinnest layers and is much more rare. Most pieces of ammolite that I've seen include red up through about green, but very little blue or purple. I don't quite know how that corresponds to the coating on my ammonite, but the purple has me encouraged, no matter how impossible it is for me to capture on a camera.

So I pretty much had to go with andalusite on this one for starters. I mean, how could I choose anything else?





I'm still debating what else I'm going to incorporate into this. I mean, pearls are a given. (They always are with me - I'm a sucker for pearls.) I have some red rutilated quartz that might be fun, but the color may be a bit too close to the andalusite for it to be effective. My fossil coral stash would be too much of a contrast, though. Decisions!

Labels: ammonite, andalusite, jewelry, lapidary

Has it really been that long?

As I'm writing this I'm realizing that it's been over six years since I was in Edinburgh. It's amazing how you can arrive somewhere and stay just a few days, but feel absolutely at home there. Every now and then I think about what would have happened if I'd acted on that impulse and hadn't gotten on the train back to London. I know, I know, my daughter wouldn't be here and all that, but the rock shops were just amazing.

That's enough tangent for one post, I suppose.

But it all gets me thinking because that means it's been over six years since I picked this up. Namely, one ammonite, about an inch in diameter. It was a nifty find, if not a perfect specimen. There are small opalescent sections toward the center on either side, and the rest of the outside has almost a leafy pattern to it. The outermost chamber is absolutely covered with tiny druzy crystals which I've since discovered are calcite.

It all makes for one decidedly intriguing piece despite its imperfections (namely, a small missing chunk), and I've been debating for the entire six years exactly how to use it. Wire wrapping would be no good - the metal would cover too much of the ammonite, and I'd probably wear off a lot of the opalescent coating in the process. I had pretty much decided to just stash it away and look at it now and then as a specimen.

Today I got looking at it again, and saw that there was an indentation at the center of the formation. It actually matched up on both sides. What the heck, let's start drilling.

I actually did it the right way with this one and did the drilling wet. Lots of brown muddy gunk to clear out of the way, but it did make the job a lot easier. The clamp cooperated and everything, I was quite impressed.

I have yet to decide exactly how I'll use it, but here's the finished product:



Ammonite, woo!

I'm thinking of designing some sort of very basic wire bail that I can use to cover the little missing chunk. Now then... silver or copper?

Labels: ammonite, jewelry, lapidary

I had thought I'd never make a pair of these earrings again.

Never mind that I've sold every pair I've ever made, never mind that I just made five pairs for a wedding, never mind any of that. It's too much of a pain, too complicated trying to figure out how to attach the bead cap without detracting from the drops, too much time and frustration for too little in return.

Then I saw these bead caps, fell in love and needed to make another pair.

The thing is, most bead caps are meant to be used as bead caps. I know that sounds strange, just bear with me. For this style of earring, you need to use a bead cap that has a lot of openwork to it. Now in general, the bead caps with all that openwork are designed to be used with large beads. Therefore, when you try to attach them to an earwire, it's difficult to do so in a manner that doesn't reveal whatever dirty trick you used to make the connection. You could rig up something with some smaller beads, but the beads are either so small that they go right through the cap, or they're large enough to be clearly visible underneath the cap.

This has all been quite possibly my largest point of frustration with this design, so when I found bead caps that have a closed loop at one end, I just had to get them. These ones were perfect: just the right amount of detail with holes at the bottom for adding the wire and chain. They'd been sitting around for a month or so until a couple of days ago, when I finally got up the nerve to sift through my beads and select 16 that would be worthy of these earrings.

I added the first and second drops, no problem. I turned the bead cap to start the third drop and discovered an issue: the third and fourth holes had been covered over with silver.

For a metal as soft as silver, you'd think it would be easier to drill. I instead found myself swearing at the clamp because it was bending the cap, swearing at the drill bits that weren't the right diameter or slowed to a crawl as soon as they hit the metal. Once I got an actual hole established, I then had to change out the bits about three times to make the hole the right size. Meanwhile, Jeff's watching all this and insisting that I'm going to break something.

I didn't.


'Rainbow Waterfall' earrings in sterling silver with Tunduru sapphires and white topaz

Labels: chandelier, design, drops, earring, jewelry, sapphire, topaz