Notes From The Jeweler's Bench Vol. 2

After a stressful two months of designing a new sweater pattern (my annual birthday design—the most important pattern of the year) and preparing for an orchestral audition (that I took this past Thursday (I did not get the job, which is okay, taking an orchestra audition is hell)) I’ve finally found myself back at my jewelry bench, which had been collecting dust.

Jewelry tends to be the first thing to go when work gets too busy. I don’t have an hard commitments around producing jewelry. I never know when I’m suddenly going to feel too busy and overwhelmed to sit at the bench though, so this time I set down the torch for two months mid-project. I strongly dislike coming back to a half finished project that has been languishing untouched for more than a week. It stresses me out. In a practical sense, there isn’t any about putting a WIP on hold that makes it more difficult to finish after time off, but mentally it stresses me out to have to sit down, reassess where I’ve left things, and complete what I started. Having that WIP looming on my work surface meant that I waited until I was having a particularly low-stress good mood day to sit down and finish it. Of course, it probably took less than 2 hours to finish as over half the work had been done already. Obviously I then asked myself, “Why was this stressing me out? I could have done this any day of the past 8 weeks.”

The project in question is my tourmaline Twin Ring. I’ve made this twin ring style in the past using round chrysoprase stones. For this iteration I’ve used oval cabochons in two different colors of tourmaline. One pink, one green. One of my friends saw it and said, “Ooh, you made a Wicked ring!" which for the sake of preserving my sense of artistic dignity I have gone through some effort to ignore, unless a Wicked ring is exactly what you would like to buy, in which case, I made a Wicked Ring! The pink stone is Ariana, and the green one is.. you guessed it! Cynthia!!

Another old style I’ve recently brought back is the “Ocular Ring” which I call that because it looks kind of like a little eyeball. I’ve been sitting on these 3mm emeralds and amethysts for months and I’m happy to finally get to see them in design. Since this is an easily repeatable design, I’ve listed them as made to order and kept the originals for myself. I don’t often make anything for myself, and all of my best work has gone to customers, so this is a treat. The technique used to set a faceted gemstone embedded in metal is called flush setting, and I would classify it as medium level annoying to accomplish. One innovation I’ve made in bringing back this design is that I’ve begun using fine .999 silver for the bead where the stone is set rather than sterling. Fine silver is softer and more malleable, so it makes it much easier to drill the seat and set the stone securely.

Another material that I bought months ago but have been simultaneously dying to/too scared to use are these gorgeous baroque pearls. I have very little experience working with fine wire or beads, so I knew I’d have to learn a couple of different techniques to incorporate these pearls in a design. Once I settled on an idea, the execution was pretty easy. I solicited advice on my favorite Facebook metal smithing group about melting the end of a length of wire to make a ball (so that the pearl can’t slip past the end of the wire), and I watched a few YouTube videos on creating a wire wrapped loop (one of the basic skills of wire wrapping but new to me!) I asked two friends whether this style should have a post or French wire hook and they had two different opinions. I went with the French wire hook because it’s what I’m familiar with and thus felt easier. I’m afraid to make a post earring back because jewelers bitch and moan about it being difficult and annoying all the time, but low key I kind of think it should be easy, so I promise I’ll try it soon.

I’d like for my current jewelry workflow to last for at least the next one month, so if you’re a jewelry lover look forward to another Notes From The Bench entry soon, buy something from JNW Jewelry, and keep your eyes on what I post over at the JNWJewelry Instagram! <3