I've made my darling hubby, who has very mixed feelings about my jewelry, a few pieces over the years. A couple of pendants, and a watch. He wears the pendants when he thinks of them, which is averaging once every 4 months or so.. but the watch he really likes, and he wears it everyday to work. 
In the first picture, you can see what it looked like. I made this originally for him 3 years ago for Christmas. I can't tell you how much it means to me that he likes the watch so much. Everytime he breaks something on it, he wants it fixed asap. He's broken it at least 3 times. Last week he got it caught on machinery at work, and this time he wants something different.. he requested something more reflective of my work now. Something with wirework. He's right; over the last 2 years my work has shifted.
Still he's hard on jewelry, so it has to be sturdy. He wanted something simple and manly; cause well, he's a guy. He's also got a 7 inch wrist, which gives me less area to work with. After some study I started working on it last weekend, and just finished it last night. The big square stones in front are bloodstone ( he loves the name of that BTW!) wrapped in 16 ga copper. The wire is way to thick for the stones, so I've actually strung the beads with softflex and then fitted the wraps to the stone, and strung them on like a bead. The spirals are my sneaky way of hiding the crimps, and making it look like everything is wireworked. I'm hoping it will last longer this way also. It gives it very good fit also, being more flexible with beading wire as the base. The large black beads in back are obsidian.
In the first picture, you can see what it looked like. I made this originally for him 3 years ago for Christmas. I can't tell you how much it means to me that he likes the watch so much. Everytime he breaks something on it, he wants it fixed asap. He's broken it at least 3 times. Last week he got it caught on machinery at work, and this time he wants something different.. he requested something more reflective of my work now. Something with wirework. He's right; over the last 2 years my work has shifted.
Still he's hard on jewelry, so it has to be sturdy. He wanted something simple and manly; cause well, he's a guy. He's also got a 7 inch wrist, which gives me less area to work with. After some study I started working on it last weekend, and just finished it last night. The big square stones in front are bloodstone ( he loves the name of that BTW!) wrapped in 16 ga copper. The wire is way to thick for the stones, so I've actually strung the beads with softflex and then fitted the wraps to the stone, and strung them on like a bead. The spirals are my sneaky way of hiding the crimps, and making it look like everything is wireworked. I'm hoping it will last longer this way also. It gives it very good fit also, being more flexible with beading wire as the base. The large black beads in back are obsidian.
Here is Jerry trying to look like Christen from Project Runway.
Ok, metalsmithing. I'm taking a class at the art center here in Des Moines. I'm also working my way through a couple of books and Don Norris's CD. Somewhere towards the end of this blog should be a picture of the first item I've made using sterling soldering. ( I tried to solder once before with a soldering iron and base metal solder.. don't ask, I'm not counting those and neither should you!) It's a paw print in silver, on copper backing. I had this great scheme of making this really kewl locket thingie.. instead I used way to much solder and well, now it's a zipper pull on one of my bead bags. Despite looking like it's caught a diseased with all the extra solder I like it, and maybe after a few more experiments I'll make another that that doesn't have dying solder bleeding all over it! I've made a few other things with solder since, just to practice. I'll have more pictures next time. I think I'm just trying to go to fast- I have so many ideas bouncing around in my head, but I don't have the skill set yet to do them. I need to take deep breaths, slow down and keep to a simpler scale while I learn. Besides, my torch right now is a propane torch bought at the hardware store. On the other hand, once I graduate into a real metalsmithing torch, I'll have pretty good control.. if I can control a hardware torch then a professional torch should be a cake walk! (sez the ever optimistic Kat) More to come.... 
1 comment:
Kat - I thought your zipper pull pretty cool. It almost looks like a paw print of an animal.
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